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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 











































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THE 


TWO KINGDOMS 


BY 


REV. THOMAS McGRADY. 

St. Anthony’s Church, Bellevue, Ky. 

AUTHOR OR 

“THE MISTAKES OF INGERSOTL.” 




CINCINNATI. 

JOS. BERNING PRINTING CO., 
431 Main Street. 


1899. 
L - 




<4 




32446 






COPYRIGHT BY 

THOMAS McGRADY, 
1899. 

All rights reserved. 

f wo copies received. 



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WASBKBttnVl mm 






PREFACE. 


For many years I have been pondering the mysteries of the 
Apocalypse, and the more I studied that book, the more I felt 
the inadequacy of the human mind to fathom the depths of 
divine thought. 

The Evangelist beheld in a vision a “ beast coming up out 
of the sea having seven heads and ten horns. ’ ’ What was the 
significance of that vision ? Did it refer to the past or the future ? 
In consulting the opinions of several biblical commentators, I 
learned that, while entertaining quite divergent views relative 
to other mysteries of the Apocalypse, they unanimously held 
that the beast represented secular power, and the seven heads 
symbolized seven anti-Christian empires, five of which had passed 
away before the date of the Revelations, as St. John expressly 
states. What relation could the fallen powers of antiquity bear 
to the joys and sorrows, triumphs and persecutions of Christi¬ 
anity ? Why should the angel reveal to the Evangelist facts of 
past history, which was closed forever, and which could have 
no influence, either salutary or deleterious, on the empire of 
the Church ? 

I concluded that the kingdoms were yet to come, and that 
reference was made to the pagan governments of the ancient 
world, simply, because, the errors of those countries, and the 
hatred they manifested for the chosen race, would be revived in 
the age of Anti-Christ. 

The binding of Satan for a period of one thousand years 
was another mystery that I could not solve. In reading St. 
Augustine’s “De Civitati Dei” I learned that the erudite bishop 
of Hippo interpreted this passage to signify the redemption of 
mankind from the bondage of iniquity by the vicarious atone¬ 
ment ; and he considered the establishment of the Church the 
dawn of the Millennium, whose reign of virtue and purity 
would continue until the advent of the final persecution. This 
interpretation failed to satisfy my mind ; for every where in the 



4 


Preface. 


world were evidences of Satanic power, and the absence of 
Christian influence. I beheld the vast continents of Asia and 
Africa resting beneath the shadow of paganism ; and I said that 
the universality of Christian dominion was yet a dream. I 
delved into the works of the earlier Fathers ; and, while many 
of their ideas seemed puerile and nugatory, there was much in 
their writings that deserved serious consideration. 

Reading again the prophecies of the Old and New Testa¬ 
ment, I became thoroughly convinced that a period of Christian 
supremacy would yet dawn upon the world, and during a thou¬ 
sand years all nations would adore the Babe of Bethlehem, and 
seek refuge beneath the shadow of the Cross; and that the 
thoughts of all men would be directed by the inspirations of 
the Bible; and all peoples, tribes and tongues would walk in 
the light of the Gospel and bask in heaven’s genial smiles. 

In this volume I have endeavored to sustain this idea with 
Scriptural proofs, and I have speculated on the condition of 
humanity during the age of the Millennium. The causes which 
have cooperated in frustrating the prophecies were clearly seen ; 
and I have proved from Scriptural authority, that, when these 
obstacles are removed, Christ will reign in the hearts of men, 
and the empire of Satan will be annihilated. 

I have dwelt at some length on the foibles of humanity as 
demonstrated in the lives of individuals, and ecclesiastical and 
civil society, I have criticised the hierarchy of Catholicism and 
the ministry of Protestantism as well as secnlar government for 
thwarting the purposes of Christianity. In justice to my per¬ 
sonal character, however, I avow that malevolence has not 
actuated me in these strictures. I bewail the decline of religion ; 
and in writing this volume I have sought the amelioration of 
mankind, and especially the people of my native country. 
While the glory of the Gospel has been manifested in every 
age, the power of darkness has won victories in every nation. 
The good grain has been sown, but tares have appeared in the 
field, and the empire of iniquity has flourished in the heart of 
Christianity. 

This book treats of the Millennium, Anti-Christ and the 
end of the world, and the condition of the blessed in heaven ; 
and, hence, I called it the “The Two Kingdoms,’’ the king¬ 
dom of Christ and the kingdom of Satan. 


Preface. 


5 


I know that my attitude towards the Church, the govern¬ 
ment and modern society will be denounced by the pulpit and 
the press. God has given me an intellect and a will, and he 
wished that I should use these faculties in the formation and 
expression of my opinions ; and, acting in conformity with the 
purposes of my creation, I do not intend to seek the permission 
of the world in the promulgation of my honest convictions. 

While many Catholic journals will laud my efforts in de¬ 
nouncing the evils of the age, some will undoubtedly solemnly 
asseverate that my conceptions were begotten in the womb of 
hell, the foul progeny of a polygamous union with fiendish 
spirits. I have some reasons to question the infallibility of these 
soi-disant savants and their pansophical pretensions, and I shall 
not lose my equanimity by their cynical denunciations and 
malevolent observations. 

These mental pygmies, confident that the wisdom of Solo- 
man has been inseparably connected with the journalistic toga, 
and transmitted as an essential appendage to the editorial chair, 
opine that they are able to decide, immediately and without 
premeditation, all the questions that arise in all the depart¬ 
ments of lore ; and he, who doubts the inspiration of their 
oracles, is an infamous heretic beyond the power of reformation 
and the hope of salvation. 

When my first book “The Mistakes of Ingersoll” appeared, 
these sages claimed that the diction was too grandiloquent. 
One journal, though doing me justice in many respects, said 
that it would be a “a great work if three hundred pages of 
poetry were chopped out of it.” If this same editor would 
imitate the style he 5b emphatically condemned, and give copi¬ 
ous quotations from the work in his columns, the circulation of 
his paper would increase rapidly. 

It is strange that Protestant and secular papers discovered, 
in the eloquence of the diction, the most charming feature of 
the book. Perhaps these literary wise-acres condemned the 
rhetoric of the work, because that fatuous insipidity, which 
characterizes their columns, was conspicuously absent from its 
pages. 

Some journals totally ignored the receipt of the copy which 
had been forwarded by the publishers. I presume, however, 
that they have not yet succeeded in translating the phraseology 


6 


Preface. 


into their vernacular, and, when that task is accomplished, they 
will amuse the public with their opinions. 

When we publish our thoughts to the world, we must be 
prepared to hear adverse criticisms, and I do not ask the press 
of the nation to spare my feelings in estimating the value of 
this work. Most of the papers, Catholic, Protestant and secular, 
were very fair to me in my first effort; and I feel confident that 
the same sense of justice will inspire them in their review of 
“The Two Kingdoms.” 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter I. 

PAGE. 

Signs that shall precede the end of the world. False 
Christs and false Prophets. Wars. Famines. Pesti¬ 
lences. Satan shall be bound for one thousand years. 

The Millennium. Long Life.. 9 

Chapter II. 

The Fathers and the Millennium. The joys of the last 
age. The restoration of Eden. Where is Eden. The 
lost Atlantis and other lands. 37 

Chapter III. 

Has the Millennium come ? The Middle Age*. The virtues 
of the Middle Age. Paganism and Idolatries of the 


Middle Age..'. 63 

Chapter IV. 

Mohammedanism. Heresies. Vices of the Middle Age. 

Wars. Truce of God . 89 

Chapter V. 


Dismemberment of the Christian Church was fatal to the 
development and expansion of Christianity. Bigotry. 
Defects in the governmental system of Catholicism 
and Protestantism, and the results of these defects. . . . 114 

Chapter VI. 

Languor and indifference of Christian teachers have re¬ 
sulted in general demoralization. Divorce. Prostitu¬ 
tion. Murders. Robbery. Intemperance. Disparity 
between rich and poor. Dishonesty of politicians. 
Crimes of governments. Our millionaires not patri¬ 
otic ... 148 

* I have used the singular number in this case to designate 
one continuous period, instead of a succession of centuries. 









8 


Contents. 
Chapter VII. 


PAGE. 

Hispano-American War not justifiable. Mexicans and 
Indians of North America. England not humane, 
proved by her government at home and abroad. A foe 
to liberty. Hawaii. Anglo-American alliance. Na¬ 
tional expansion. 177 

Chapter VIII. 

Trusts. Corporations. Railroads. England owned by a 
few millionaires. Condition of France in the 17th 
and 18th century. French revolution the result of 
oppression. Socialism will be inaugurated. Benefits 
of Socialism. Revival of Christianity. The reign of 
Christ on earth. 212 

Chapter IX. 

Anti-Christ. Miracles. Prodigies. Beast signifies secular 
power. The seven heads are seven religions and the 
ten heads are ten kingdoms. Possibilities and future 
glory of Asia. Anti-Christ shall reign in the temple 
of Solomon. His reign shall last three years and six 
months.. 242 

Chapter X. 

The intellectual and mechanical powers of the Anti-Chris¬ 
tian empire symbolized by the two horns. Locusts. 
Henoch and Elias shall return to earth and convert 
many people by their preaching. The number of 
Anti-Christ’s name will be six hundred and sixty-six. 
Flying ship. Gog and Magog. Vials of wrath. Earth 
shall be destroyed by destruction of equilibrium of 
natural laws. The new heaven and the new earth 271 






The Two Kingdoms. 


CHAPTER I. 

SIGNS THAT SHALL PRECEDE THE END OF THE WORLD. 
FALSE CHRISTS AND FALSE PROPHETS. WARS, 
FAMINES, PESTILENCES. SATAN SHALL BE BOUND 
FOR ONE THOUSAND YEARS. THE MILLENNIUM. 
LONG LIFE. 


T HE history, of the universe is the history of 
mutations and revolutions, creations and de¬ 
structions, development and decay, the joys of 
birth and the agonies of death ; and the record of time 
is the passage from the cradle to the grave, from pos- 
' sibility to reality, from entity to nihility. All the 
works of nature have their beginning and their end. 
The roseate dawn of birth is followed by the twilight 
shadows of death. This constant change is mani¬ 
fested in all the objects that surround us. The flow¬ 
ers spring forth in gala robes with the genial rays of 
vernaltide, and wither and fade in autumn’s chilly 
blast. The trees wave their viridescent locks in the 
scented breath of May ; but soon they don the golden 
tints of the waning year, and fall to rise no more. 
The cooing infant and the prattling babe pass into 
childhood and manhood, thence to the sorrow of old 
age and the shadows of the grave. 

Nations cast aside their swathing bands and 
emerge from the weakness of infancy and the ob¬ 
scurity of childhood to play their role upon the stage 
of glory ; and after centuries of historic renown the 



IO 


The Two Kingdoms. 


sword falls from their grasp and the}" are trampled 
beneath the march of conquering hosts. As it is with 
the flowers of the vale, and the foliage of the groves, 
•and the life of man and the history of nations and 
races, so shall the heavens and the earth pass away. 
The day will come when the fountains shall be sealed, 
when the woods shall be silent, when the fields shall 
be desolate, when the rivers and streams shall be empty, 
when the mountains shall fall, when the stars shall 
not shine by night, and the moon shall vanish, and the 
brilliant light of the sun shall be extinguished. 

Seven hundred years before the birth of the 
promised Messiah, when Israel was yet a free nation, 
and the hand of Omnipotence held in check the war- 
dogs of the North and the giants of the South ; before 
the desolation of the temple ; when Jerusalem was the 
seat of a kingdom, one of the greatest prophets, looking 
through the vista of ages, beheld the destruction of 
the universe in flames of fire. “A visitation shall 
come from the Lord of hosts in thunder and with 
earthquake, and with a great noise of whirlwind and 
tempest, and with a flame of devouring fire.” (Isa. 
xxix. 6.) “For behold, the Lord will come with fire 
and his chariots are like a whirlwind, to render his 
wrath in indignation and his rebuke with flames of 
fire.” (Ibid 66.) 

Sophonias, who lived a short time before the cap¬ 
tivity of Juda in Babylon, in contemplating the afflic¬ 
tions of his race, was gifted with the illuminations of 
prophecy, and beheld the destruction of nature in the 
outpouring of devouring flames of divine wrath. 
“That day is a day of wrath, a day of tribulation and 
distress, a day of calamity and misery, a day of dark- 


The Two Kingdoms. 


i 


ness and obscurity, a day of clouds and whirlwinds.” 
(Isa. i, 14 .) 

Our Lord himself, speaking of that dreadful 
event, says, ‘ Tmmediatelj 7 after the tribulation of 
those days, the sun shall be darkened and the moon 
shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from 
the heavens and the powers of the heavens shall be 
moved.” (Matth. xxiv.) “And I saw, when he 
opened the sixth seal, and behold there was a great 
earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth 
of hair, and the whole moon became as blood, and the 
stars from heaven fell upon the earth.” (Apocal. 6 .) 

Christ has given us the sign which shall precede 
the end of the world : “You shall hear of wars and 
rumors of wars. .For nation shall rise against nation 
and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be pes¬ 
tilences and famines and earthquakes.” (Matth. 24 .) 
“And there shall be signs in the sun and the moon 
and the stars, and upon the earth distress of nations 
by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea 
and of the waves, men withering away from fear and 
expectation of what shall come upon the whole 
world.” (Luke 21 .) 

From the earliest times, scholars have been en¬ 
gaged in fathoming the depths of religion and the 
mysteries of human life, in studying the origin and 
decay of material existence, the birth and death of 
creation, the beginning and end of all things. 

The light of revelation has been cast upon every 
dark spot in the spiritual life of man, and the voice of 
infallibility has warned us against the perils of every 
rock and shoal. But there are many truths which are 
not essential to salvation, and neither the sacred lips 


12 


The Two Kingdoms. 


of Infinite Wisdom, incarnate in the person of Jesus 
Christ, nor the prophetic utterances of inspiration, 
have exposed them to the calcium light of certitude ; 
and the living oracle whom the Spirit of Truth has 
armed with the special prerogative of infallibility, has 
not dared to withdraw the veil of secrecy in which 
they are enshrouded like the Holy of Holies in the 
tabernacle of Israel. 

Endowed with the faculty of reason, a gift which 
renders us akin to the angels of heaven, and like the 
Ruler of the Universe, we are justified in exercising 
our minds in the pursuit of truth, especially the truths 
of eternity, which bring us close to the feet of our 
Creator and the heart of our Redeemer. 

Although the Bible has given us the history of 
creation and prophesied the end of the world, yet the 
dates of these great events have never been revealed. 

As no scholar h$s ever been able to decide the 
question when this planet rolled into space, and became 
a new agent in the forces of nature, a new actor in the 
dance of the spheres ; so the brightest genius has failed 
to designate the period when it shall pass from the 
arena of existence, when it shall vanish from the thea¬ 
tre of the skies. 

When the disciples asked our Lord when the con¬ 
summation of the world would occur, He replied, “Of 
that day and hour no one knoweth ; no, not the angels 
of heaven, but the Father alone.” However, Christ 
minutely described the signs that would announce, the 
approaching end, and depending upon these uncertain 
data, men of profound thought have been speculating 
ever since the fall of Jerusalem, on the fulfillment of 
the prophecies that pertain to the destruction of the 


The Two Kingdoms. 


13 


world ; and they have not hesitated to mention the year 
when time would be engulfed in the eternal ages, and 
the silent centuries would respond to the trumpet of 
doom. 

St. Jerome informs us that a certain Judas pre¬ 
dicted that the earth would be destroyed in the 3 rd 
century. We learn from history that many expected 
this catastrophe in the year 365 . St. Augustine claims 
in his valuable work, “ De Civitate Dei ”, that some 
maintained that the world’s history would close with 
the dawn of the 5 th century. The primitive fathers, 
believing with the Romans that their empire would be 
eternal, had linked the fall of the imperial city with 
the annihilation of the globe ; and when the throne of 
the Caesars was laid in dust by the conquering legions 
of Odoacer, they looked for the signs that were to pro¬ 
claim the coming of the fatal hour. 

It was a commonly accepted opinion in the early 
centuries of the Christian era, that the earth would 
end after 6000 years of duration ; and depending on 
the chronology of the Greek version of the Codex Vati- 
canus, which made the period between Adam and 
Christ 5500 years, some writers designated the year- 
500 for the fulfillment of the messianic prophecy relat¬ 
ing to the destruction of the world. 

Again, it was thought that the completion of the 
first millenium from the infancy of the church would 
terminate the ages of time. 

Rainereus, Bishop of Florence, predicted that the 
last day would come between 1071 and 1078 . Fluen- 
tius, another Bishop of the same see, foretold that the 
12 th century would complete the history of the earth ; 
while Norbertus taught that the consummation would 


The Two Kingdoms. 


H 

occur in the following century. Joachim, likewise a 
Florentine, designated the year 1260 for the end of the 
reign of Anti-Christ, and the dawn of the golden age 
known among the early fathers as the Millenium. 
Beguini mentioned 1335 as the eventful epoch, and 
Arnold of Villanova does not differ with him to any ap¬ 
preciable degree in point of time. Wickliffe claimed that 
the world would come to an end in 1400, and Vincent 
Ferrierin 1413. Certain German fanatics assigned 1532 
as the date of the final calamity, and many Tutherans 
predicted that it would take place in 1533. Francis Mel- 
etus designated the year 1530 ; Postel, 1536 ; John of 
Paris, 1569 ; Cyprian Leovitius, 1584 ; Bruschius, 
1589; Israel Hubner, 1566; Philip Nicholas, 1670; 
Nicholas Cusa, between 1700and 1734; Braubon, 1711; 
William Whiston, 1714; Bengel, 1834; William Mil¬ 
ler, 1844. Again, 1911, 1994, 2000, 2433 and 2537 
have been designated by various writers as the periods 
in which time and eternity shall meet. 

I do not pretend to decide the question definitely, 
for the celestial wires were cut in twain 1900 years ago, 
and since that time telegraphic communications have 
been suspended between heaven and earth. Neverthe¬ 
less, God’s message to man has been preserved in the 
Bible and in the traditions of Christianity, and being 
in possession of the prophecies relating to the signs' 
that shall herald the reign of Anti-Christ and the de¬ 
struction of the world, I hope that my readers will not 
condemn me for temerity in attempting to predict the 
time when these events shall transpire. 

When the disciples of Jesus .showed Him the tem¬ 
ple and all the beauty of its design, all the treasures 
which it contained, all the wealth and splendor of its 


The Two Kingdoms. 


15 


ornaments, our Cord prophesied that the day was not 
far distant when this superb structure should be re¬ 
duced to ashes. “Amen, I say to you, there shall not 
be left here a stone upon a stone that shall not be de¬ 
stroyed ’ ’. 

Shall this grand edifice, the pride of the nation 
and the glory of Jerusalem, fall like the temples of 
Egypt ? shall it crumble like the walls of Babylon ? 
shall it decay like -the palaces of Nineveh ? shall it 
perish like the cities of Phoenicia? shall it vanish 
like the lost tribes of Israel ? It is destined to pass 
away like all the works of human hands. The moss 
and the ivy shall cover its ruins, like the tombs of 
the patriarchs ; its stones shall be scattered like the 
ashes of the prophets, and its fate shall be mourned 
by the children of Abraham for thousands of years. 

It was the fond hope of Juda that the visions of 
her seers would be accomplished in the achievement 
of national independence, and their restoration to 
pristine .splendor and glory; and the people of the 
chosen race had long dreamed that another Josue 
would arise from the dust of ages, armed, with the 
shield of justice and the sword of vengeance, and 
would chase the Roman legions from the Royal City, 
hallowed by the memory of priests and kings, altar 
and sacrifice ; that prophets would again wake the 
spirit of the past by visions of a golden age in Jewish 
history when their legions would be victorious, when 
their people would be faithful, when their religion 
would be purified, when their' oblations would be 
acceptable,when their rulers would be just, when their 
temple w r ould become the everlasting pledge of divine 
beneficence to the children of Abraham. 


i6 


The Two Kingdoms. 


Having heard that the fate of their sacred edifice 
was sealed, they thought that the day of judgment was 
near, and they requested Jesus to tell them when these 
things would come to pass, and what would be the 
sign “of the consummation of the world”. Our Sa¬ 
vior speaks of these two occurrences in the same lan¬ 
guage. Jerusalem was a type of the world in its 
iniquity and ingratitude, and the terrible woes that 
fell upon the unfaithful city were mere shadows of the 
calamities that shall overwhelm the wicked world in 
the day of God’s wrath. “ Take heed to yourselves, 
that no man deceive you: For many shall come in my 
name saying: I am Christ; and they shall seduce 
many.” (Matth. 24.) 

History confirms the fact that “ false Christs and 
false prophets ’ ’ appeared anteriorly to the fall of the 
holy city. In the 13th chapter of the 2nd book of the 
Jewish wars, Josephus relates that an Egyptian as¬ 
sumed the role of a prophet in the reign of Nero, and 
formed a band of “30,000 men that were deluded by 
him ”, and he was prevented from breaking into Jeru¬ 
salem by the armed force of Roman soldiers, acting 
under the instructions of Felix, procurator of Judea. 

Likewise, we learn from the 5th chapter of the 
Acts, that, even during the lifetime of Luke, Theodas 
and Judas of Galilee laid claims to exalted powers, and 
drew many people away from the faith of Christ. In 
the 8th chapter of the Acts, we read that “ there was 
a certain man named Simon, who before had been a 
magician in that city, seducing the people of Samaria, 
giving out that he was some great one. To whom 
they all gave ear, from the least to the greatest, saying: 
“ This man is the power of God which is called great” 


The Two Kingdoms. 


17 


‘ ‘ Who gave himself out as the Blessed Trinity and by 
his incantations succeeded in having a statue erected 
for himself on the Tiber, with the inscription: Simoni 
Deo Magno ”. 

Josephus says that Judea was at this time filled 
with imposters. All the historians of the age testify 
that these false prophets and pseudo-Messiahs wrought 
marvelous feats and seduced large numbers, especially 
among the sons of Israel, tvho, having rejected the 
historic Christ, were ready to receive any one coming 
in His name. 

In predicting the fall of Jerusalem and the destruc¬ 
tion of the world, Christ foretold that there would be 
wars, pestilences, famines, earthquakes, persecutions 
of His Church. And all these signs were fulfilled 
within forty years from the day that they were an¬ 
nounced. There were constant seditions and bloodshed 
among the Jews, and frequent disturbances and tu¬ 
mults among other peoples and nations. Famine raged 
in the city of David before its final demolition by the 
Roman legions ; and pestilence, says a great writer on 
this question, is the natural and usual concomitant of 
famine. 

Eusebius says that during the reign of Nero there 
was a great earthquake at Rome, and its consequences 
were so terrific and far-reaching that three cities in 
Asia were demolished by the force of its vibrations. 

Judaism and paganism united their strength to 
crush the infant church of Christ; but the Gospel tri¬ 
umphed. over the legions of its enemies, and the .sign 
of the Cross was revered from the shores ef the Tiber 
to the sultry plains of India. It is true that many of 
the faithful were driven by persecution to abandon the 


i8 


The Two Kingdoms. 


teachings of the Nazarene, yet the triumph of Christi¬ 
anity was the admiration of the world, and some script¬ 
ural commentators hold that the prophecy pertaining 
the universal empire of the Gospel was literally ful¬ 
filled previously to the fall of Jerusalem. 

The signs that were to announce the destruction 
of Jerusalem and the end of the world are enumerated 
in the 24th chapter of St. Matthew, from the 5th to 
the 16th verse. The warnings found in the same 
chapter, from the 16th to the 22nd verse, have refer¬ 
ence to Jerusalem alone. From the 22nd to the 27th 
verse, our Ford again speaks of the two events in com¬ 
mon, and uses the same language in reference to both. 
From the 27th to the 32nd verse, Christ speaks of the 
end of the world exclusively, and in the remaining 
part of the chapter He speaks of both indiscriminately. 

The signs that proclaimed the fall of Jerusalem 
can be regarded as remote signs of the last day, and 
the others ma}^ be called proximate signs. The former 
are wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, the rise of 
false Christs and false prophets, persecution of the 
Church apostacies, increase of iniquity and the decay 
of faith and charity. All these signs were fulfilled 
during the lifetime of St. John, prior to the dispersion 
of the Jewish race ; and I may add that they have been 
realized many times since. 

The proximate signs of the end of the world are 
the falling of the stars, the darkness of the sun and 
the moon, and other terrific agonies manifested in 
heaven and upon earth. The proximate signs shall 
proclaim that the reign of Anti-Christ is finished ; 
that God shall protect His Church and disperse her 
enemies ; and He shall arm nature with weapons of 


9 


The Two Kingdoms. 

destruction, to annihilate the disciples of the beast and 
the dragon. And these signs shall immediately precede 
the last day. Therefore, we cannot take them into 
consideration in fixing the date of the approaching end, 
since they will be the finishing strokes of God’s venge¬ 
ance, the culmination of His victory over an atheistic 
age. It is likewise impossible for us to surmise the 
fulfillment of the prophetic words proclaiming the re¬ 
mote signs of the earth’s final end, amid scenes that so 
often seem to indicate that epoch. 

Many a time since the ascension of Christ the 
world has been filled with the sound of deadly strife. 
Nation has risen against nation and kingdom against 
kingdom, and the earth has been drenched in the blood 
of humanity. The voice of false prophets has 
echoed on every shore, and the altar of Belial has been 
erected in every land. The Prince of Darkness has 
cast his dismal shadows upon every country, and has 
held dominion over multitudes in every age. The 
light of faith sends forth but a glimmering ray, and 
the night of infidelity is growing black in the shadows 
of hell. Hatreds increase with every pulse and throb 
of the human heart, and the flame of charity has ex¬ 
pired amid the iniquities of the present generation. 

The holy evangelist, in that glorious vision re¬ 
corded in Revelations, saw the radiant throne encir¬ 
cled with the four living creatures, the authors of the 
four Gospels and the four and twenty ancients, the 
twelve patriarchs of Israel and the twelve Apostles of 
the New Testament. He saw the reign of the Church 
amidst the altars of Judaism, and the sacrificial flames 
of heathen Rome, the triumph of the Spouse of Christ 
over the synagogue and the oracles of paganism, the 


20 


The Two Kingdoms. 


birth of heresies, the dismemberment of Christendom, 
the rise of Mahometanism, the defection of the Byzan¬ 
tine empire, the reign of infidelity and the conquest of 
atheism, the dawn of the Millenium, the enthronement 
of Anti-Christ, the end of the world and the last judg¬ 
ment. 

Modern commentators have fallen into gross errors 
in the interpretation of the Apocal}’pse. Thinking 
that the persecutions and victories of Christianity have 
followed each other in the literal sense of the Revela¬ 
tions, the}’ have injudiciously concluded that all the 
signs mentioned in the New Testament, from the 
birth of the Church to the time of the Anti-Christian 
supremacy, have been realized in the history of the 
past. 

The Revelations have a general and a special sig¬ 
nificance. There have always been wars, famines, 
pestilences, earthquakes, persecutions, false messiahs, 
and imposters who preached salvation in the name of 
Christ, and this is the general significance of the proph¬ 
ecies foretelling the end of the world. 

We know that history repeats itself ; and all the 
calamities that have afflicted the Church from time to 
time, for nineteen centuries, shall be concentrated on 
her in the last days of her existence, and the period of 
her sufferings shall last three years and six months. 
Apostacies shall be multiplied, hatred of Christian 
principles shall be intensified, and every sign men¬ 
tioned in the Bible shall be manifested during this reign 
of iniquity and destruction. 

How are we to know that the reign of Anti-Christ 
is at hand ? There is one great and glorious age which 
is to precede the last conflict between truth and false- 


The Two Kingdoms. 


2 I 

hood, and this is the reign of Christ upon earth for a 
period of one thousand years. 

The inspired penman writes that he, “saw an 
angel coming down from heaven, having the key of 
the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. And 
he laid hold on the dragon, the old serpent, which is 
the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand 
years. And he cast him into the bottomless pit, and 
shut him up and set a seal upon him, that he should 
no more seduce the nations, till the thousand years' 
be finished. And after that he must be loosed a 
little time. And when the thousand years shall be 
finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison and 
shall go forth and seduce the nations, which are over 
the four quarters of the globe, Gog and Magog, and 
shall gather them together to battle, the number of 
whom is as the sand of the sea. And they came upon 
the breadth of the earth, and encompassed the camp 
of the saints and the beloved city. And there came 
down fire from God out of heaven, and devoured them; 
and the devil, who seduced them, was cast into the 
pool of fire and brimstone, where both the beast and 
the false prophet shall be tormented day and night 
forever and ever.” (Apocal. 20.) 

According to this prophecy, the day will come 
when Satan shall be bound that he might no more se¬ 
duce the nations. Where there is no Satan, there is 
no sin, and where iniquity is a stranger, virtue is su¬ 
preme and innocence sits enthroned in the human heart. 
Where there is no evil, there can be no violation of 
the commandments, no adoration of false gods, no 
cursing, swearing and blasphenty ; no desecration of 
the Sabbath, no disrespect for parents, teachers, rulers 


22 


The Two Kingdoms. 


and governors; no contentions, enmities, quarrels, 
wraths, dissensions, homicides, murders and assassina¬ 
tions ; no acquiescence to groveling lust and indulgence 
in voluptuous pleasures, save those that are legitimized 
by sacred vows cemented with heavenly benedictions. 

Where there is no evil there can be no injustice, 
theft and robbery ; no falsehood, calumny and detrac¬ 
tion ; no desire for the wealth of others ; no breaking 
of connubial bonds ; no ruin of domestic peace and 
joy ) no wrecking of homes and separation of families 
and abandonment of children. In a world of virtue, 
there is “charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, 
goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, con- 
tinency and chastity.” 

The age of the Millennium will be signalized by 
the total destruction of the empire of Satan and the 
universal dominion of Christianity. In that age, vir¬ 
tue shall reign in every heart ; iniquity shall find no 
dwelling place in all the wide world. Rulers will be 
wise, and judges will be just ; charity will be fostered 
in every bosom, and wealth and poverty wall then be 
reckoned among the evils of the past. All the nations 
of the earth shall be united in bonds of brotherly love, 
and shall meet like children of the same household 
around the parental fireside. Every tribe shall bend 
its knees to Jesus, and ever)' tongue shall sing the 
praises of God. 

That this age shall last for one thousand years is 
clearly expressed in the Apocalypse. That it shall 
immediately precede the reign of Anti-Christ, is also 
evident from the words of the evangelist, who says 
that after this age, Satan shall be loosed a little time. 
During this little time he will seduce the nations of 


The Two Kingdoms. 


23 


the earth. His empire will become universal ; there 
will be a sudden, instantaneous and general defection, 
or apostacy from the Christian faith. The period of 
Anti-Christ’s supremacy is designated in the 13th 
chapter of Revelations as continuing for forty-two 
months, and in the 12th chapter as a period of 1260 
days, and in other places in the Bible it is expressly 
and emphatically stated that it will last three years 
and one half. This period of three and one half years 
is to follow the Millennium, and at the end of the reign 
of Anti-Christ, the judgment of God shall fall upon 
the wicked, and both the beast and the false prophet 
shall be cast into a pool of fire and brimstone, where 
they shall be tormented forever and forever. 

Know that one thousand years from the dawn of 
the Millennium, Satan shall be loosed, and he will per¬ 
secute the church for two and forty months, and then 
the history of the world will close in the victory of 
Christ and the defeat of his enemies, and the joys of 
the just and the shame of the wicked shall be intensi¬ 
fied in the last general judgment in presence of all 
nations and all generations. 

Rooking through the shadows of ages, Isaias be¬ 
held the rise of the day-star of human hope, the dawn 
of the golden age of justice, when Christ would reign 
with his saints upon earth amidst the pleasures of lost 
Eden, renewed by the merits of the second Adam, 
who, as the lion of the tribe of Juda, has slain the 
ancient foe, and retrieved the ruined fortunes of a 
fallen race. In beholding the auroral blush of roseate 
day breaking through the mist and darkness that lay 
upon the earth, the great prophet of Israel predicted 
that the Prince of Peace should come and “His empire 


2 4 


The Two Kingdoms. 


shall be multiplied and there shall be no end of peace; 
he shall sit upon the throne of David and upon his 
kingdom; to establish and strengthen it with judg¬ 
ment and justice, from henceforth and forever; the 
zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.” (Isaias, 
chapter 9th.) 

The royal prophet exclaims in ecstasies of joy, 
“The Lord hath prepared his throne in heaven and 
his kingdom shall rule over all” (Psalm 102), “and 
he shall have dominion over the nations.” (Ibid 21.) 
“All the ends of the earth shall remember, and shall 
be converted to the Lord; and all the kindred of the 
gentiles shall adore in his sight.” (Ibid.) “And he 
gave him power and glory and a kingdom ; and all peo¬ 
ples, tribes and tongues shall serve him; his power is 
an everlasting power that shall not be taken away, and 
his kingdom shall not be destroyed, and all kings shall 
serve him and shall obey him.” (Dan. 7th.) 

Describing the special characteristics of that age, 
the prophet says that “The wolf shall dwell with the 
lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid. The 
calf, the lion, and the sheep shall abide together, and a 
little child shall lead them. The wolf and the bear shall 
feed; their young ones shall rest together. And the 
suckling child shall play on the hole of the asp; and the 
weaned child shall thrust his hand into the den of the 
basilisk. They shall not hurt, nor shall they kill in all 
my holy mountain, for the earth is filled with the 
knowledge of the Lord.” (Isaias nth.) 

Nothing is more positively declared in the Bible 
than the truth that sin and peace can not coexist in the 
same heart. Peace is the flower of grace, and the lat¬ 
ter is incompatible with the reign of sin. The lifeless 
tree can not engender leaves and fruit; neither can the 
soul, shorn of grace, produce spiritual joys, for the 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


25 


vivifying principle is absent. We are reminded by the 
voice of inspiration that there is no rest for the wicked; 
that the wicked are like a raging sea. Christ having 
come as the prince of peace, destroyed the empire of 
sin and the power of Satan, and restored man’s bleed¬ 
ing heart and troubled spirit to God, the loving Father 
from whom they had been alienated by temporal inter¬ 
ests and corporal affections. 

Therefore, when the prophet beholds the dawn of 
an age in which peace shall reign from end to end, we 
necessarily expect the banishment of iniquity from 
every land, the enthronement of virtue in every heart, 
the destruction of foreign altars, and the supremacy 
of the Gospel in every country from the north to the 
south pole. The wolf, emblem of rapacity, represents 
the avaricious, who hesitate at no robbery or injustice 
in the acquisition of wealth; and the lamb, type of in¬ 
nocence, signifies the poor, humble and simple of 
heart, who have been victimized by the oppression of 
the covetous and dishonest. 

These two classes of people, the proud, haughty, 
heartless capitalist, and the poor, simple laborer, will 
meet on terms of amity, and forget their ancient quar¬ 
rels engendered by ancient wrongs, eliminated in the 
age of grace and righteousness. 

The lion, the mighty ones of the world, kings, 
statesmen, conquerors, shall mingle with the ignorant 
and simple and the unpretentious, symbolized by the 
calf and the sheep, and they shall all be led by the 
simplicity of the Gospel, justly tokened by the inno¬ 
cence of childhood. 

Besides the mystic significance of the prophecy of 
Isaias, there is, also, a literal meaning. It is com¬ 
monly held by theologians that enmity between man 
and the animals, and between the different species of 


26 


Thd Two Kingdoms 


irrational creatures among themselves, was the result' 
of Adam’s transgression. Moses states, in the book 
of Genesis, that when God had created the earth and 
all things that inhabit the land, He commanded the 
animals to pass before Adam, that he might name 
them, and they were obedient to the will of their 
Creator and the voice of their master. 

It is generally supposed, that, previously to the 
rebellion of our original sire, there was universal peace 
and harmony upon earth, corresponding to the grace 
that dwelt in the human heart and adorned the human 
soul. This was destroyed by sin, and hatred sup¬ 
planted love; confusion succeeded order, and a deadly 
conflict began among all the species of mundane crea¬ 
tion, and strife between man and man, and war be¬ 
tween nation and nation; and the earth was soon crim¬ 
soned with the purple stream of life, and strewn with 
the victims of fierce passions, lashed to fury in the 
surging tide of battle. 

The age of peace and brotherly love shall be felt 
amidst the animal creation. Man will no longer abuse 
his power over the lower species ; will no longer devour 
the flesh of animals, a custom which originated in a 
barbarous age, when the struggle for existence was 
manifested in every order of Creation, and when the 
theory of the survival of the fittest was forcibly illus¬ 
trated in rational as well as irrational life. 

When man turns to God in love and obedience, 
the jarring, grating notes of discord introduced into 
the psalm of life, by the voice of sin, shall be elimi¬ 
nated ; sounds of harmony shall fill the world with joy 
and gladness; beauty of symmetry shall be restored, 
and the thoughtless beast will instinctively assume his 
sphere of action, and show love and submission to 
man. 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


2 7 


The day will come when the prophecy of Isaias 
will be realized in the triumph of the Church, the 
Spouse of Christ, over the corruption of a wicked 
world; when the empire of grace will be universal; 
w r hen the pure offering of every heart shall go forth to 
the throne of God from the rising to the setting of the 
sun; when the commandments will be observed by 
every child of the human race; when the spirit of the 
Gospel shall permeate every people and every nation, 
and the beautiful Sermon on the Mount shall be exem¬ 
plified in the lives and actions of a universal brother¬ 
hood following the footsteps of the Nazarene. 

Isaias prophesied that in those days there would 
be no poverty, no oppression, no slavery; but plenty, 
peace, and freedom, “And the Lord of hosts shall make 
unto all peoples on this mountain a feast of fat things, 
a feast of wane, of fat things full of marrow, of wine 
purified from the lees. And he shall destroy in this 
mountain the face of the bond with which all people 
were tied, and the w T eb which he began over all 
nations. He shall cast death down headlong forever, 
and the Lord God shall wipe away tears from every 
face, and the reproach of his people he shall take 
away from off the whole earth, for the Lord hath 
spoken it. And they shall say in that day, Lo! this 
is our God, v T e have waited for him, and he will save 
us; this is the Lord, we have patiently waited for him; 
we shall rejoice and be joyful in his salvation.” (Isaias 
25th.) 

The prophet announces the dawn of an era when 
Omnipotence will destroy death, which is here used to 
signify sin, for sin is the cause of death, and by meton¬ 
ymy, a figure frequently employed in biblical language, 
one is taken for the other. “In what day soever thou 
shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death,” said the Lord 


28 


The Two Kingdoms. 


to Adam amidst the bowers of Eden. Our first par¬ 
ents having violated this injunction, death followed in 
the wake of sin, and the two have been linked together 
as inseparable companions. ‘T»v one man sin entered 
the world, and by sin, death; so death has passed unto 
all men in whom all have sinned.” 

The fiat of death is universal, and all generations 
have passed down into the somber shadows of the 
grave. Where are the patriarchs of Israel who kept 
the chosen people free from the contaminations of 
heathen idols and pagan vices? Where are the pro¬ 
phets who saw in their bright visions the star of hope 
that was to rise upon the gentile nations, and disperse 
the shadows of ancient superstitions with the illumi¬ 
nation of a perfect civilization begotten in a pure wor¬ 
ship and a holy sacrifice? They are all dead, they are 
all silent, they are all gone. 

Where is Isaias, who saw the heavenly court ar¬ 
rayed in divine splendor and beauty fair, and the 
kingly elders standing, in awe, before the majesty of 
Juda’s God, whose lips were purified with celestial 
flames, that he might be worthy to describe the royal 
city and sing the glory of the Lord of hosts ? 

Where is Ezechiel, who beheld the untold victories 
of the unborn church ? 

Where is Jeremias, who wept over the desolation 
of Jerusalem and the desecration of the temple? 

Where is Daniel, who foretold the year when 
Christ would be born, and whose shadow tamed the 
hungry lions ? 

Where is David, who conquered the enemies of 
Israel, and laid the foundation for the glorious reign 
of Solomon? 

They are all silent, they are all dead, they are all 
gone. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


29 


Where are the illustrious kings of Egypt, whose 
names are inscribed upon every stone of the ancient 
cities of Memphis and of Thebes, who erected those 
vast pyramids that have stood for forty centuries, like 
sentinels upon the sands of the Nile, and have watched 
the growth and expansion and decay of the mightiest 
empire that ever flourished on the shores of the Dark 
Continent ? 

Where are the renowned men of the Cushite race, 
the founders of Ocadh and Aden, whose walls were 
built with bricks of silver and gold ? 

Where are the fathers ,of the ancient dynasties, 
immortalized in the verse of epic poets ? 

They are all silent, they are all dead, they are all 
gone. 

Where are the philosophers of the portico and the 
academy, the seven wise men of Greece, and the bards 
who have encircled her mountains with sacred mem¬ 
ories and hallowed her streams with the voice of magic 
that has charmed all nations, like the notes of distant 
harps sounding through the shadows of night, like the 
sighs of the spirits whispering from the tomb of for¬ 
gotten ages, like the echo of familiar strains that we 
heard in our childhood years? 

Where are the statesmen who sat in her councils 
and framed the laws of the country ; the orators who 
swayed the multitude, as the gale moves the ripening 
grain, and who inflamed the heart of the nation with 
the fire of patriotism, and filled the soul of the warrior 
with love of freedom ? 

They are all silent, they are all dead, they are all 
gone. 

Where are the renowned men who established the 
monarchies of Europe and who rocked the nations of 
modern times in the cradle of infancy? Where are 


30 


The Two Kingdoms. 


the heroes who carried the banner of victory over 
prostrate armies, and who raised the ensign of power 
upon the walls of conquered cities ? 

Where are the ancient painters, who immortalized 
the canvas with master-strokes of the brush ; the sculp¬ 
tors who gave the marble the forms of life and beauty; 
the musicians who charmed the world with symphonies 
divine ? 

They are all silent, they are all dead, they are all 
gone. 

The decree has been promulgated that it is ap¬ 
pointed unto all men once to die; and the pale steed 
seen in the vision of St. John, has conquered every 
tribe and people from the origin of human society 
until now, and his triumph shall be consummated only 
when humanity is wrapped in the weird raiment of 
the tomb. 

Three thousand years ago the great epic bard sang 
of the human race: 

“The race of man is as the race of leaves; 

Of-leaves, one generation by the wind 

Is scattered on the earth; another soon, 

In spring’s luxuriant verdure, bursts to light. 

So with our race; these flourish, those decay. 

Wretched mortals! for of all that breathe 

And walk upon the earth or creep is naught 

More wretched than the unhappy race of man.” 

Yet the day will come in the march of time when 
death shall be robbed of his sting, and smiles of joy 
shall fall like heaven’s fairest rays upon the shadows 
of the grave. The sorrows of death arise from 
the mystery of the tomb, for in this world of 
carnal corruption, where we are constantly exposed 
to the assaults of hell and the snares of the devil, no 
man knoweth whether he be worthy of love or hatred. 


The: T x wo Kingdoms. 


3i 


But in the peaceful, happy reign of Christ upon earth, 
Satan being bound, sin shall be no more, at least sins 
of mortal consequences, and the soul clad in the snowy 
robes of baptismal innocence, shall smile in its tri¬ 
umph over the victory of the grave. 

The nations will sing a canticle to the throne of 
the living God for the blessings of the Millennium. 
After thousands of years of patient endurance, years 
of blood and suffering, years of strife and persecution, 
years of sin and destruction, years of conflict between 
the powers of darkness and the light of grace, the 
Savior will triumph over the human heart; Jesus will 
appear panoplied in full armor, to battle for the rights 
of the just. The faithful, looking back over the dark 
centuries of the past, when the Church was seemingly 
deserted by her Spouse, and iniquity stalked the land, 
and the world echoed with the tramp of infidelity and 
the footsteps of atheism, marching on in their path 
of conquest, will hail the sunrise of that golden age 
with grateful souls and joyous hearts. “For the hand 
of the Lord shall rest in this mountain; and Moab shall 
be trodden down under him as straw is broken in 
pieces with the wain.” (Isaias 25.) 

The holy mountain is the city of God, the Church 
militant upon earth, where the prayers of the faithful 
and the obedience of the just, where the spirit of love, 
ever dwelling in the members of Christ’s mystical body, 
render this habitation of the righteous like unto the 
kingdom of the predestined in heaven where Omni¬ 
potence sits enthroned. 

We must not think for a moment that the prophet, 
in his reference to Moab, speaks of the nation that 
dwelt on the eastern confines of Canaan; but he refers 
to the power of iniquity of which this tribe was a figure. 
The promise that Moab shall be destroyed and trodden 


32 


This Two Kingdoms. 


under foot, signifies the fall of Satan’s empire, when 
the angel shall bind him and cast him into the bottom¬ 
less pit and shut him up for one thousand years. 

“For behold,” in those days, says Isaias, “I create 
new heavens and a new earth, and the former things 
shall not be in remembrance, and they shall not come 
upon the heart. But you shall be glad and rejoice 
forever in these things which I create; for behold, I 
create Jerusalem rejoicing, and the people thereof joy. 
And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people; 
and the voice of weeping shall no more be heard in 
her nor the voice of crying. There shall be no more 
an infant of days, nor an old man that shall not fulfill 
his years. For the child shall die a hundred years old ; 
and they shall build houses and inhabit them, and they 
shall plant vineyards and eat the fruits of them. They 
shall not build and another inhabitthey shall not 
plant and another eat; for as the days of a tree, so shall 
be the days of my people, and the works of their hands 
shall be of long continuance.” (Isaias 65.) 

In these words God promises joy, peace, prosper¬ 
ity, and length of days to his people, whose posses¬ 
sions shall not be confiscated by inimical govern¬ 
ments. 

During the past centuries the Church has been 
constantly persecuted, and Christians have been de¬ 
prived of their legitimate possessions by the enact¬ 
ments of legislatures. The widow and the orphan have 
been robbed of the property and the substance left by 
the charity of the devout. The disciples of the Cross 
have been driven from their native land, to seek homes 
beneath foreign skies. 

When the kingdom of Christ shall become perfect 
in its organization, pure in its spirit, and universal in 
its extent, the followers of the Galilean “shall build 


The Two Kingdoms. 


33 


houses and inhabit them, plant vineyards and eat the 
fruits of them,” and the days of the just shall be “as 
the days of a tree.” 

We learn from the first book of the ancient Testa¬ 
ment, that when God created man, he was innocent, 
and holy, and happy. His life was a joy. His sole 
occupation consisted in regulating his heart in obedi¬ 
ence to the will of God. A curse was pronounced on 
Adam for his transgression, and this curse descended 
upon his posterity. “I will multiply thy sorrows and 
thy conceptions ; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth chil¬ 
dren, and thou shalt be under thy husband’s power, 
and he shall have dominion over thee.” And to Adam 
he said, “Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of 
thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I com¬ 
manded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the 
earth in thy work; with labor and toil thou shalt eat 
thereof all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles 
shall it bring forth, and thou shalt eat the herbs of the 
earth. In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread 
till thou return to the earth out of which thou wast 
taken.” (Genesis 3.) 

Eden, with all its wealth of vegetation, with all its 
beauties and fascinations, with all the charms which the 
Creator had bestowed upon it, and with which nature 
had embellished it, was suddenly annihilated by a 
thunderbolt of divine wrath. It passed away from the 
knowledge of man, or remained a dream of faded 
glory. Sin was the weapon which blighted the sacred 
joys that reigned in the heart of pristine man, and 
destroyed the homes consecrated by the breath of God, 
and shaded by the wings of angels. 

Before the fall of Adam, it is commonly believed 
that immortality was a gift bestowed on human nature. 
St. Thomas says that man was incorruptible, not be- 


34 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


cause his composition enjoyed the character of incor¬ 
ruptibility, but the soul possessed a vital force that 
preserved the body from decay. A body can decay 
either interiorly or exteriorly. The former mode of 
corruption is accomplished through the consumption 
of the fluids that permeate the system. This could 
be prevented, says the Angelic Doctor, by consump¬ 
tion of foods. The latter mode of corruption could 
take place by atmospheric agencies; and St. Thomas 
holds that this could have been avoided in Eden, for 
he quotes John Damascene for the assertion that 
Paradise was a place favored with a temperate, gentle, 
pure climate, and adorned with plants ever green and 
flowers ever roseate, (i. i. Qu. 102, Art. 2.) 

Now, since all of Eden’s joys and all man’s prero¬ 
gatives have been lost by sin, it is consistent to believe 
that, when the day of universal emancipation from the 
power of darkness shall dawn upon a curse-laden 
world, the ancient gifts shall be restored, at least in 
part, and the earth shall again be gladdened with the 
smiles of God and the song of angels. Men shall be 
emancipated from the bondage of labor, for Paradise 
will bloom again, and the tree of life will bring forth 
the ancient fruit that shall serve as an antidote for the 
ravages of time and the waste of years. 

I do not mean to say that death shall be no more, 
for death was the curse of the original infection, and 
that taint flows down from the fountain of our race 
through the long, wide stream of humanity. No, 
death shall not be abolished, but its sorrows shall be 
mitigated. It shall not be abolished, for original sin 
is coeval and shall be coextensive with the race of 
Adam; and death, the result of original sin, shall make 
no exception in the choice of its victims. 

In the first ages of the world’s history, men lived 


This Two Kingdoms. 


35 


eight and nine hundred years. Human longevity was 
abbreviated on account of the multiplication of human 
iniquities. When the earth became the home of Beel¬ 
zebub, instead of the angels of God, the Almighty said, 
“My spirit shall not remain in man forever, because he 
is flesh, and his days shall be one hundred and twenty 
years. Now giants were upon the earth in those 
days.” (Genesis 6th.) 

Length of years and magnitude of stature were 
rewards of virtue: so brevity of life with corporal de¬ 
bility and quantitive insignificance, were punishments 
of sin. 

God promised Moses that the faithful disciples of 
the law would live long upon the land which he would 
give them. (Exod. 20-12.) “Keep my command¬ 
ments and my judgments, which, if a man do, he will 
live in them.” (Levit. 12.) And, again, he exhorts 
the Israelites to be just, “that thou mightst live a long 
time upon the land which the Lord thy God will give 
thee.” (Deut. 25-10.) 

Three thousand years ago he spoke to Solomon 
in paternal accents, “If thou wilt walk in my ways and 
keep my precepts and my commandments as thy father 
walked, I will lengthen thy days.” (3 Kings 3-14.) 
The Most High confirmed these promises through the 
voice of the royal prophet, “The fear of the Lord shall 
prolong days, and the years of the wicked shall be 
shortened. (Prob. 16-27.) “The fruit of the just man 
is a tree of life.” (Prob. 11-30.) 

The tree of life was to blossom and bloom and 
fructify forever, and the children of Adam were to live 
on its luscious fruit and rest beneath its shady 
branches. The wintry blast should never blight its 
tender vines, and the brumal snows should never 
wither its verdant leaves. Its youth would outlive 


36 


The Two Kingdoms. 


the frost of centuries, and its life would not fade with 
the “rumble and the roll and the roar” of ages. 

Man was to be as the tree of life, and its fruit 
would renew the waste caused by the ravages of time. 
Therefore, when the reign of grace is restored, and 
iniquity is banished, and God is enthroned in the hearts 
of men, the life of the individual shall be measured by 
centuries instead of decades, and childhood shall be 
extended from a score to a hundred years; and while 
death awaits every individual, yet the infant born dur¬ 
ing the Millennium shall live until the reign of Anti- 
Christ 


The Two Kingdoms. 


37 


CHAPTER II. 

TH£ FATHERS AND THE MILLENNIUM. THE JOYS 
OF THE LAST AGE. THE RESTORATION OF EDEN. 
WHERE IS EDEN. THE LOST ATLANTIS AND OTHER 
' LANDS. 

I N this chapter I will amplify what I have said in the 
preceding chapter in describing the characteristics 
of the Millennium as represented in the writings 
of the early fathers. Every reader of church history is 
perfectly familiar with the fact that the most erudite 
theologians and Scriptural scholars of the first ages 
of Christianity believed in the ultimate restoration of 
God's supremacy ovqr the human heart, which would 
be manifested in the triumph of grace, the exalta¬ 
tion of virtue, the reign of fraternal charity, and the 
banishment of every obstacle to human happiness, in 
the renewal of the carnal joys of Eden. While some 
of the fathers fell into gross errors in supposing a 
purely carnal Millennium, yet there is much in their 
writings that is strikingly confirmed by the prophecies 
of the Ancient Testament. Papias, one of the Presby¬ 
ters of the infant Church, is quoted by several writers 
in support of this doctrine. The traditionary parable 
found in the works of this writer, and, by some, attrib¬ 
uted to our Lord, would confirm the belief in a carnal 
Millennium. The following is the parable found in 
the works of Papias: 

“The day will come in which vines shall grow, each 
having ten thousand boughs, and on each bough ten 
thousand branches, and on each branch ten thousand 
switches, and on each switch ten thousand dusters, 


3« 


The; Two Kingdoms. 


and on each cluster ten thousand grapes, and each 
grape, when pressed, shall yield twenty-five measures 
of wine. And when one of the saints shall take hold 
of a cluster, another cluster shall cry out, ‘I am a bet¬ 
ter cluster, take me, through me bless the Lord.’' 

Irenaeus, commenting on these words, subjoins: 
“In like manner, a grain of wheat shall produce ten 
thousand ears, and each ear shall have ten thousand 
grains, and each grain ten pounds of fine, clean flour; 
and other fruits and herbs according to the proportion 
befitting them; and that all animals using this food 
which is obtained from the earth, shall be at peace and 
harmony, subject to men with all subjection/' (Ox¬ 
ford Edition of Irenaeus’ Works, p. 528.) 

How beautifully does this language accord with 
the nth and 25th chapters of Isaias! Irenaeus taught 
that after the resurrection, the saints, in different de¬ 
grees of proximity, according to their merits, would 
enjoy the sight of God upon earth for a thousand 
years. “Everywhere shall the Savior be seen, as they 
who see him shall be worthy.” (Irenaeus' Works, p. 
537.) Irenaeus quotes, in favor of this opinion, the 
authority of the Presbyters who had seen and heard 
St. John, and who, perhaps, had imbibed their doc¬ 
trine from the Evangelist himself, or, at least, had been 
impressed through his teachings with the idea that the 
Millennium expressed in the Apocalypse would come 
after the resurrection. 

The opinion of Irenaeus and others of his school 
seem to indicate that the thousand years mentioned in 
Revelations was to be a season of preparation, that the 
saints might become inured to the sight of God before 
entering into divine companionship, which constitutes 
the plenitude of spiritual fruition. “All these and 
other sayings (he refers to the 25th chapter of Isaias) 


The Two Kingdoms. 


39 


are v without controversy spoken of the resurrection of 
the just, which takes place after the coming of Anti- 
Christ, and the destruction of all nations, who are 
under him, in which the Christians shall reign on the 
earth, growing by the sight of the Lord, and, through 
him, shall be habituated to receive the glory of God the 
Father, and shall in the Kingdom receive a conversa¬ 
tion and communion and unity of spiritual things with 
the holy angels. And as God who raiseth men from 
the dead, really is, so, also, doth man really, and not 
allegorically, rise from the dead, as we have shown at 
such length. And as he truly riseth, so, also, shall he 
truly be practiced for incorruption, and shall be en¬ 
larged and strengthened in the periods of the King¬ 
dom, so as to become capable of receiving the glory 
of the Father. In this new heaven and new earth, 
man shall abide ever new, and having intercourse with 
God.” (Ibid, p. 533.) 

After speaking of the threefold habitations of the 
saints as they had brought forth thirty, sixty, or a 
hundred fold, he says that “Then shall those who are 
saved, be ranked and ordered, and by gradations such 
as these, shall they advance, and that by the spirit do 
they ascend to the Son, and by the Son to the Father.” 
(Ibid, p. 537.) 

The wine and wheat mentioned in the Ancient 
Testament, and quoted by Papias and the Presbyters, 
are explained in a mystical sense by Irenaeus, as signi¬ 
fying the Holy Eucharist. Together with the risen 
saints, Irenaeus maintained that those who had resist¬ 
ed the persecutions of Anti-Christ would live on, and 
their ranks would be multiplied by natural generation. 
(Ibid, p. 533.) He also expected the restoration of the 
City of David, and he held that the prophecies pertain¬ 
ing to the aggrandizement of the Israelitic nation 


4° 


The Two Kingdoms. 


would be fulfilled in the Christian Church. “We have 
seen a little while before that the Church is the seed of 
Abraham, and, therefore, that we may know in the 
New Testament after the Old, he shall, out of all na¬ 
tions, gather together those who shall be saved, raising 
up from the stones children to Abraham.” (Ibid.) 

The opinion of Justin Martyr harmonizes with the 
doctrine of the Millennium, and he claims that this 
doctrine pertains to the soundness of Christian faith. 
After quoting extensively from the 65th chapter of 
Isaias in support of this tenet, Justin continues: “A 
teacher of ours, whose name was John, one of the 
twelve Apostles of Christ, foretold in a Revelation, 
which was made to him, that those who believe in our 
Christ should pass a thousand years in Jerusalem; 
and that, after that, there should be an universal, and, 
in a word, an eternal resurrection of all men together, 
and then the judgment.” (Oxford Edition of Justin’s 
Works, p. 176.) 

In his controversy with Trypho, Justin admitted 
that he believed that Jerusalem would be rebuilt, and 
that Christians would live in joy with Christ and the 
patriarchs and prophets of Israel. Moreover, he 
emphasized the opinion that any who deny this doc¬ 
trine are not Christians, but “godless and impious 
heretics But I and all other Christians whose belief 
is in every respect correct, know that there will be 
both a resurrection of the flesh, and a thousand years 
in Jerusalem, which will then be rebuilt and adorned 
and enlarged as the prophets Ezechiel, Isaias and 
others declare.” (Ibid, pp. 174. 175.) 

Again, Justin says: “Men from every country, 
whether slaves or free, if they believe in Christ, and 
acknowledge the truth in his words, and in those of his 
prophets, know that they will be together with him in 


The; Two Kingdoms. 


4i 

that land, and shall have an incorruptible and eternal 
inheritance.” (Ibid, p. 241.) 

Melito, Bishop of Sardis, one of the most spiritual 
men of his age, and who was regarded by many Chris¬ 
tians as a prophet, held the same view of Chiliasm as 
Irenaeus and Justin. He made a journey to Palestine 
for the purpose of studying the Bible, and we can pre¬ 
sume that he understood the Apocalypse thoroughly, 
for, in his day, the meaning of that book was pre¬ 
served, in its integrity, in the holy city. 

Writing on this topic, Gennaduis says: “In the 
divine promise we look for nothing earthly, as the 
Melitans hope; no marriage union according to the 
phrensy of Cerinthus and Marcus; nothing pertaining 
to meat and drink as Irenaeus, Tertullian, Lactantius, 
according to Papias; nor do we hope that for one 
thousand years after the resurrection, the reign of 
Christ will be on earth, and that the saints will reign 
with him amid delights, as Nepos taught, who feigned 
a first resurrection of the righteous, and a second of 
the ungodly, and that, between these two, the nations 
who know not God will be kept in the flesh in the 
corners of the earth.” (Notes of Oxford Edition Ter., 
p. 125.) This passage illustrates the general teachings 
of the first ages in reference to the Chiliastic theory.. 

Tertullian limits the joys of the Millennium to 
spiritual joys. “This (Jerusalem), we say, is provided 
by God for receiving the saints upon the resurrection, 
and refreshing them with the abundance of all (only 
spiritual) good things, in compensation for those 
which, in the world, we have either despised or lost.” 
(Ibid.) Then the author states that after the resurrec¬ 
tion, for a thousand years, the faithful, the saints of the 
Church, shall dwell in “Jerusalem divinely built, 


4 2 


The Two Kingdoms. 


brought down from heaven. This both Ezechiel knew 
and the Apostle John saw.” (Ibid, p. 126.) 

The doctrine of Chiliasm, the doctrine that Jesus 
would restore his children to the ancient city of Juda, 
that his disciples, having inherited the promises made 
to Abraham two thousand years before the reign of 
Christianity would dwell in this glorious habitation, 
that the land of Canaan would again flow with milk 
and honey, that there would be one thousand years of 
peace, happiness and love—this doctrine was univer¬ 
sally taught by the fathers of the first centuries. Some 
looked upon the reign of Chiliasm as the season of 
carnal joys, while others believed that there would be 
only spiritual delights. Nevertheless, there was no 
dispute about the substance of the doctrine, and there 
were none to deny that the Millennium would ever 
become a reality, or to hold that such an age was not 
authorized by the teachings of the Bible and Christi¬ 
anity. 

Origen was the first great scholar who opposed 
Chiliasm. He maintained that the fathers of the pre¬ 
ceding age had been misled in the interpretation of 
the prophecies, accepting the promises in a literal, 
instead of a mystical sense. Other writers of a later 
date, also, held that their predecessors had been guilty 
of Judaizing the sacred text, and drawing conclusions 
in accordance with the carnal notions of that perverted 
race. Dionysius of Alexandria, the disciple of Origen, 
imitated the example of his master in combating the 
doctrine of the Chiliasts. 

But still the idea of the Millennium continued both 
in the East and West till after the time of St. Jerome. 
We must not forget one significant fact, that the Mil¬ 
lennium was taught by many scholars of great merit, 
even during the last age of its existence. Jerome 


The Two Kingdoms. 


43 


writes that Apollinaris answered Dionysius in two vol¬ 
umes, and that the question was still undecided in his 
day. He furthermore confessed that it was a subject 
of exceeding perplexity, even to himself, for he ac¬ 
knowledged that he did not possess the moral courage 
to oppose the views of so many of the ancients. The 
writings of Jerome convince the reader that he be¬ 
lieved in a spiritual Millennium in contradistinction to 
the carnal Millennium of his predecessors. However, 
he thought the Chiliastic idea would not be fulfilled on 
earth, but in heaven. 

Augustine also adhered to the doctrine of a spirit¬ 
ual Chiliasm, and he differed with Irenaeus, not only 
in the nature of the joys that would characterize that 
age, but, also, in the period of their fulfillment, believ¬ 
ing that the Millennium would succeed the last judg¬ 
ment. “That eighth day” (Job 20-26), writes Augus¬ 
tine, “signifies the new life at the end of the world; the 
seventh the rest of the saints, which shall be on earth. 
For the Lord will reign on earth with his saints as the 
Scriptures say, and will have a Church here where no 
evil shall enter. For the Church shall appear first in 
great brightness and dignity and righteousness. After 
the sifting of the day of judgment the mass of the 
saints shall appear (separated from the chaff) resplen¬ 
dent in dignity, very mighty in good deeds, and show¬ 
ing forth the mercy of their Redeemer. And then 
shall be the seventh day. When the sixth day (of the 
redemption of man after the image of our Creator in 
Christ) shall have passed away, then shall come the rest 
after the sifting, and the saints and the righteous of 
God shall have their Sabbath. After the Sabbath we 
shall pass into that life and that rest of which it is 
written, ‘that eye hath not seen nor ear heard/ ” 
(Ibid, p. 129.) 


44 


The Two Kingdoms. 


Augustine says that they who believe in this doc¬ 
trine have argued that there should be a Sabbath of 
ages as well as a Sabbath of creation; that at the end 
of six thousand years, the saints should take their rest 
with God, a holy rest after man’s ejection from “the 
bliss of paradise, entailed by that great sin, into the 
sorrow of this mortal life; so that since it is written one 
day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thou¬ 
sand years as one day, the six thousand years (of the 
duration of the world) being accomplished, as it were 
six days, there should follow, as it were, the seventh in 
the last thousand years, the saints, namely, rising again 
to celebrate their Sabbath. Which opinion would be 
at all events unobjectionable, if it were believed that 
the saints should in that Sabbath have spiritual joys 
through the presence of the Lord.” (Ibid.) 

These few quotations will serve to show that 
Chiliasm is almost as ancient as Christianity. It orig¬ 
inated early in the second century, shortly after the 
death of St. John. If it has been abandoned by later 
writers, we can justly attribute this change to the many 
gross absurdities which characterized the opinion of 
the early fathers on this question, and not to the inde¬ 
feasibility of the doctrine as taught by inspired men. 

The ancient Chiliasts made some serious mistakes 
in the exposition of their theory. In the first place, 
they generally maintained that the joys of that age 
would be of a purely carnal nature, which is wholly 
inconsistent with the spirit and the letter of the Gospel. 
Again, they taught that Christ would personally reign 
on earth; that the just would be regaled with the joys 
of his visible presence; that the Millennium would fol¬ 
low the resurrection. Whereas the New Testament, 
and especially the Apocalypse, distinctly precludes the 
possibility of an intervening age between these two 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


45 


great events, and plainly teaches that the Millennium 
will be the reign of grace distinct from the personal 
reign of Christ. 

The Bible plainly teaches the doctrine of the Chili- 
asts, purified from these errors. It plainly enunciates 
the fact that a period will come in the history of the 
Church, when all nations shall be gathered into the 
pale of Christianity, when Christ will wield the govern¬ 
ments of the globe with the magic charm of his invisi¬ 
ble grace, and peace and harmony shall prevail among 
all people, when the fiats of kings and the mandates of 
rulers, the decrees of legislatures, and the enactments 
of parliaments shall be framed in strict concord with 
the spirit of the Gospel. 

Pride, ambition, and avarice have been the cause 
of many evils, impelling man to trample upon right 
and justice for the sake of accumulating wealth and 
acquiring power and fame, that they might enjoy an 
ephemeral distinction about the toiling masses. The 
poor have been trodden beneath the grinding oppres¬ 
sion of plutocracy, clad in the robes of royalty, and 
crushing its dependents with the sword of conquerors, 
and ruling them with the scepter of kings. In the 
reign of grace, the monarch of the glittering spheres 
and'flaming orbs will stem the tide of tyranny and 
break the rod of despotism, by providing for the neces¬ 
sities of the poor and needy in the restoration of Eden’s 
silvery streams and shady groves. 

A hungry man can not be happy. If he lifts his 
eyes to the dazzling worlds that roll through infinite 
space, and fill the azure zones with a'flood of billowy 
light; if he soars above mundane creation in sublime 
flights of thought engendered by the contemplation of 
Omnipotence in the manifestation of his works, he 
will soon descend in ridiculous bathos from the glory 


The Two Kingdom? 


46 

of distant globes and unseen lands to the question of 
bread and meat. 

We have already seen that the original idea of cor¬ 
poral immortality was destroyed by the rebellion of 
the creature. We have already seen that Eden’s tree 
of life was to bloom and fructify forever, and that the 
children of Adam were to live on its fruit, and the 
shadow of death should never fall upon a human home. 
When that.age of joy shall dawn, while death shall 
haunt the footsteps of humanity, Eden will bloom 
anew, and the tree of life will furnish a panacea for all 
human ills, and the sorrows of poverty and the pangs 
of hunger will be no more. Hence, when the prophets 
speak of the fat things and the wine and the wheat, it is 
understood that these temporal blessings shall be 
granted merely as a means of obliterating the impedi¬ 
ments to man's spiritual delights, that being free from 
the harrowing obligation of providing for his corporal 
necessities, he may be at liberty to devote all the 
strength of his mind, all the energy of his soul, all the 
affections of his heart, to God his Creator and Re¬ 
deemer. Wherefore, the joys of the Millennium will 
not be the carnal pleasures of sense, as taught by the 
Jews and the fathers of the infant Church, but the pure 
ecstacies of delight engendered by the untrammeled 
contemplation of divine goodness and beneficence. 

In the first age of the human race, there was but 
one tree of life, and Eden was limited in its extension, 
for there was but one family to live on its fruit. No 
doubt that, in the divine economy, the rejuvenating 
tree would have been multiplied and Paradise would 
have increased with every generation, and grown in 
every land, as the earth became peopled with the scions 
of our race. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


47 


Since I have alluded to Eden, I will say a few 
words about the location of the ‘spot, made famous by 
the Voice of inspiration, as well as by the song- of the 
bard and the harp of the muse. The most erudite 
scholars have been perplexed in the study of this ques¬ 
tion, and a complete solution of the difficulties has 
never yet been advanced. The river system spoken of 
in Genesis, and in the works of Josephus, does not 
correspond with any place in the geography of ancient 
or modern times. Calvin, Huet, Bochart, Wells, and 
other writers of merit, have concluded that Eden was 
situated in Babylonia, not far from the Persian Gulf. 
This theory harmonizes with the frequent references to 
the Euphrates and Tigris in connection with the de¬ 
scription and environments of Paradise. Reland, 
Calmet, Hales, Faber and Smith have adopted the 
theory that Eden was located in Armenia, not far from 
the sources of those streams that laved the feet of 
Nineveh and Babylon. EeClerc was in favor of the 
region lying around Damascus; “while the modern 
German biblical critics, convinced that the Hebrew 
account is traditional, and, in its present form, of very 
late composition, and impressed besides with the vast 
antiquity of the far East, have, almost without excep¬ 
tion, turned their eyes in that direction, and sought the 
cradle of the human race in Bactria or Cashmere or 
in the region lying to the north of it, a part of which 
is to this day called Audyana, the ‘Garden.’ ” 

Josephus and some of the fathers taught that Eden 
embraced all that country extending from the Nile to 
the Ganges. The Jewish historian writes: “Now the 
garden was watered by one river, which ran about the 
whole earth, and was parted into four parts. Phison, 
which denotes a multitude, running into India, makes 
its exit into the sea and is bv the Greeks called Ganges. 


4 8 


The Two Kingdoms. 


Euphrates, also as well as Tigris, goes down into the 
Reel Sea. Now the name Euphrates, or Phrath, de¬ 
notes either a dispersion or a flower; by Tigris, orJDig- 
lath, is signified what is swift, with narrowness; and 
Geon runs through Egypt, and denotes what arises 
from the East, which the Greeks call the Nile.” 
(Antiqu., p. 12.) 

Josephus does not fall into error in saying that the 
Euphrates and Tigris flow into the Red Sea, for our 
readers must remember that the old geographies, con¬ 
sulted by Hudson and Reland, called all the southern 
sea, which included the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, 
by the name of the latter. 

I think, however, that the Jewish historian was 
not perfectly conversant with the study of geography, 
or, perhaps, the geographical lore of his day was very 
limited; for every one knows that the Nile does not 
rise in the East, but from the South. Again, it is 
impossible for the student of this age to comprehend 
how these four rivers, two of them running at vast 
distances from the other two, could have watered Para¬ 
dise, or how the Ganges and the Nile were supposed 
to be branches or tributaries to either of the other two. 
Although the Euphrates and the Tigris unite before 
they reach the Persian Gulf, this, however, was not the 
case in remote times; for Major Rennel has ably 
proved that, even in the days of Alexander the Great, 
the two rivers were entirely distinct, and there was 
no confluence, as at a later period. 

The Jewish historian is in perfect accord with the 
biblical narrative. Moses says that the name of one 
river is Phison, that is, which compasseth all the land 
o£ Hevilath, where gold groweth. Now there is no 
mention of the Ganges, for the simple reason that the 
Ganges was the name adopted by the Greeks, and that 


The Two Kingdoms. 


49 


people did not become prominent in the history of the 
world and in the history of letters till long after the 
age of Moses. Even so, the Hebrew legislator has 
fully designated the region of the Ganges by saying 
that it is a land where gold and precious stones are 
found. 

St. Thomas explains the difficulty of the river 
system by appealing to the argument of St. Augustine, 
who says that Paradise is far removed from the knowl¬ 
edge of man, and the rivers, whose sources were said 
to have been known, flowed beneath the surface of the 
earth through vast regions, and then burst forth in 
other places. “For who is ignorant of the fact that 
certain waters are accustomed to do this?” (Summa 
Theologia, Part I., Qu. 102.) St. Thomas, in reply te 
the question that Eden has never been discovered by 
the most diligent student of geography, replied that 
this place is secluded from men by insurmountable 
barriers, skirted by lofty mountains, covered by seas, 
or made impenetrable by the heat of the atmosphere. 
(Ibid.) 

Burder, commenting on the location of Eden as 
given by the Jewish historian, writes: “The place 
wherein the country of Eden, as mentioned by Moses, 
seems most like to be situated, is Chaldea, not far from 
the banks of the Euphrates. To this purpose, when 
we find Rabshekah vaunting his master’s actions ‘have 
the gods of the nations delivered them which my 
fathers have destroyed, as Gaza and Haran and Rezepli 
and the children of Eden which were in Telessar. As 
Telessar in general signifies any garrison or fortifica¬ 
tion, so here more, particularly, it denotes the strong 
fort which the Children of Eden built in an island of 
the Euphrates, toward the west of Babylon, as a bar¬ 
rier against the incursions of the Assyrians on that 


5 ° 


Thk Two Kingdoms. 


side. And, therefore, in all probability, the country of 
Eden lay on the west side, or rather on both sides, of 
the Euphrates, after its conjunction with the Tigris, a 
little before the place where, in process of time, the 
famous city of Babylon came to be built. Thus we 
have found out a country called Eden, which, for its 
pleasure and fruitfulness, as all authors agree, answers 
the character which Moses gives of it. Herodotus, 
who was an eye witness of it, tells us, that where the 
Euphrates runs out into the Tigris, not far from the 
place where Ninus is seated, that region is, that all of 
ever he saw, the most excellent; so fruitful in bringing 
forth corn that it yields two hundredfold; and so plen¬ 
teous in grass that the people are forced to drive their 
cattle from pasture, lest they should surfeit them¬ 
selves.” (Notes, Jewish Ant., p. 12.) 

Having made quite a study of this question with¬ 
out arriving at any definite conclusion, I will merely 
offer my theory like others who have written on this 
subject. In the first place, it is scarcely possible that 
the location of Eden could be entirely lost, unless we 
presume that it was annihilated by a stroke of Omni¬ 
potence. It was a spot consecrated by the breath of 
God and the footsteps of angels, hallowed by memories 
sweet and dear to the heart of the first man. memories 
of blessings which fell like crystal dewdrops upon the 
blooming flowers of genial spring, memories of holy 
innocence, which basked in the smiles of heaven and 
knew no sin nor want, for the Creator filled his soul 
with every joy and the earth responded to every tem¬ 
poral necessity, to every corporal desire ; memories 
clear and vivid of the first happy moments when he 
stood forth in resplendent beauty, the glory of mun¬ 
dane creation, the master of sublunary existence, and 
object of wonder and admiration to the court of 


The Two Kingdoms. 


5i 


heaven, which looked down upon this new marvel of 
the universe with holy rapture, and in the exuberance 
of their delight they sang a canticle of joy that earth 
would people the lonely places of the starry realms, left 
vacant by the fall of the rebel band. 

Would not our first parents have treasured up 
these sacred memories? Would they not have told 
their children the story of their misfortune, and pointed 
to Eden as the relic of their former greatness, the abode 
of their happiest hours, the possession of their blissful 
days, the scene of their purest joys, where they held 
familiar converse with the Monarch of the skies, and 
feared not his voice, knowing that he w T as their Father, 
and they were the objects of his fondest love? Would 
they not have made an annual pilgrimage to the home 
of their innocence, and gathered up the dust from 
Eden, the withered leaves of the tree of life, as sad 
mementos pf their former state, as emblems of days 
that faded and passed away? Would they not have 
pored over the desolate spot which once rang with the 
merry laughter of pure souls and happy hearts? Would 
they not have gazed upon the solitary groves which 
once threw back the sounds of human lips, listened to 
the music of the silvery streams and thought that they 
heard again the voice of angels commingling with the 
splash of limpid rills? 

The story of Eden would have gone down to pos¬ 
terity, clothed in the living language of every genera¬ 
tion, and all the peoples, tribes and tongues of the 
globe would have journeyed, year after year, from the 
remotest parts of the earth to that spot where the 
happiest and most sacred memories of humaitity were 
enshrined. 

After two thousand years disciples of the Nazarene 
have not forgotten the cradle of his infancy and the 


5 2 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


bed of his agony. From every part of the earth there 
is a constant tide of humanity flowing into the land of 
Israel to visit the places consecrated by the shadow of 
God Incarnate. Reverently the devout Christian 
wends his way to Bethlehem, the solitary crib, the rude 
manger whose walls, built and carved by the hand of 
nature, caught and reflected the first faint cries of 
anguish that were uttered by the Divine Infant. His 
fancy wanders back in spirit flight through the shadows 
of long ago, and again he seems to hear the sweet 
melody that echoed over the plains of Judea, and 
charmed the shepherds watching their snowy flocks, 
on that solemn night when angels voiced the joy of 
the universe with a hymn of thanksgiving, that glory 
was rendered to God and peace would reign in the 
hearts of men. In his vision the Christian pilgrim be¬ 
holds Herod rising from the dust of ages, and waving 
his bloody sword against the head of Juda’s God; he 
follows the holy family over the plains of Esdralon, 
past Carmel’s naked peaks and hanging rocks, beyond 
the mountains of Samaria, across the rivers of Israel, 
and over the desert of Beersheba, till they are safe in 
the land of their exile. He returns with them to their 
humble cottage at Nazareth. He sees the child grow 
in age and grace with God and men. He follows 
Jesus in his public career through the cities of Judea, 
scattering benedictions upon the homes of the poor 
and the lonely and broken-hearted and the forsaken, 
stanching the wounds of the afflicted and wiping away 
the tears from the eyes of the sorrowful, and changing 
the wail of desolation into a canticle of joy, by infusing 
the breath of life into the silent corpse, and restoring 
the dead son to the arms of his devoted mother. 

He goes to Gethsemane, and pours out his sighs 
and tears upon every spot hallowed by the footprints 


Thi; Two Kingdoms. 


53 


of his Savior. He follows him to Pilate’s hall, to Her¬ 
od's court, along the road to Golgotha, sees his last 
looks, hears his last words, hearkens to his last sighs 
of agony, and rests not till he is laid in the chilly tomb, 
where angel bands guard their sacred trust. 1 

We are familiar with the places where Jesus lived 
and moved and worked and died. We know where he 
was born; where he spent his childhood days; where 
he performed his grandest miracles; where he went 
to pray on the night of his agony; where he knelt, 
bathed in a bloody perspiration; where the celestial 
messenger came from the royal court to offer him con¬ 
solation ; where he was scourged and crowned with 
thorns; where he fell upon his painful journey to Cal¬ 
vary; where he met his blessed Mother; where Veron¬ 
ica presented to him the handkerchief that received 
and retained the impression of his sacred face; where 
he turned to admonish the women of Jerusalem to 
weep not for him, but for themselves and their chil¬ 
dren ; where he was nailed to the instrument of torture; 
where he was entombed and rose from the dead, and 
where he bade farewell to his apostles on the day of his 
glorious Ascension. 

Although the Crescent has supplanted the Cross 
in the cradle of Christianity, and Moslem chiefs now 
march with haughty bearing in the land of the pro¬ 
phets, and the emblem of Islamism floats proudly from 
the walls of Zion, and a Turkish mosque rests upon 
the ruins of the ancient temple, adorned with all the 
wealth and genius of the reign of Solomon; yet the 
places sanctified by the life and death of the Redeemer 
have not faded from the memory of the Christian 
world. Twelve hundred years of Mohammedan dom¬ 
ination in the East has not obliterated the memory of 
these hallowed spots, and in the unborn ages, despite 


54 


The Two Kingdoms. 


the supremacy of the Mussulman, Christian pilgrims, 
from the antipodes, will bend their footsteps to the 
tomb of the Nazarene, and its site will not be lost to 
the knowledge of mankind. 

We know the place where the cities of the plains 
stood, in the days when the iniquities of Sodom and 
Gomorrah cried to heaven for vengeance, and the 
breath of God’s wrath became a burning wave of de¬ 
struction. We know where the bones of the ancient 
prophets repose, and where the patriarchs of Israel 
sleep. We know where the bitter waters were sweet¬ 
ened by the miraculous touch of a twig, when Moses 
wandered with the children of Abraham over the bleak 
desert waste on his journey to Sinai. We know the 
place where the chosen people lingered for forty years, 
the land that rejoiced in the mellific dew that distilled 
from the mists of heaven. 

We are familiar with the most renowned spots in 
the history of Egypt; the tombs of her illustrious kings 
and gallant heroes; the sites of her ancient cities that 
have long since been buried beneath the sands of the 
Nile; the ruins of her superb galleries and royal pal¬ 
aces, her sacred shrines and rock-built temples, con¬ 
secrated by the memories of gods and priests, the vows 
of pilgrims, and the oracles of prophets. 

We know all the fountains, streams and floods, all 
the mountains, woods and groves, haunted by the 
shadow of pagan deities, where the Muse divine 
charmed the bards of Greece and Rome; where Venus 
healed the wounds of bleeding hearts in the happy 
bonds of wedlock ; where Terpsichore led the merry 
throng in the wild, voluptuous dance; where Urania, 
clad in belts of light, related to the wise the history of 
the flaming worlds that deck the sable skies; where 
Mercury’s court was filled with the motley group of 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


55 


diverse shades and varied traits, pursuing the avoca¬ 
tions of letters and eloquence, merchandise and rob¬ 
bery ; where Nestor gave lessons to the lovers of wis¬ 
dom, and Orpheus charmed the rocks and trees with 
symphonies divine. 

We are familiar with the cave of Trophonius, the 
home of Calypso and Aganippe’s silvery fountain, 
whose crystal drops fell like heavenly sighs upon the 
chords of angel harps, and encircled the peaks of Heli¬ 
con with a glory that glitters through the shadows of 
lost ages. We are familiar with the altars where the 
blood of sacrifice flowed in honor of Apollo; where the 
sacred fire blazed in the temple of Vesta; where the 
gods of peace and war, the gods of victory and defeat, 
the gods of love and hatred, the gods of the meadows 
and the groves, the gods of the mountains and the 
vales, the gods of the skies and the deep, the gods of 
the hearth and the forum, the gods of every profes¬ 
sion and every pursuit, of every age and every condi¬ 
tion, were adored by the love of every soul and the 
fruit of every land. 

Eden is the most famous spot on the globe. It 
contains memories sacred to every people, every age 
and every clime. The temples of Egypt, the palaces of 
Persepolis, the sacred mountains of Greece, and the 
hallowed shrines of Rome, belonged to a particular 
people and to an age that is almost forgotten. The 
memory of Paradise is dear to every human being; for 
within its beautiful inclosure our race was born and 
endowed with all those gifts that have made the golden 
page in the history of the world. I can not believe 
that its location could have been lost save by a miracle 
from heaven. 

Perhaps God, in his wrath, transformed that 
charming scene into an arid desert, a wild, desolate 


The Two Kingdoms. 


waste of rock and sand, parched by the rays of a 
scorching sun, frowned upon by the starry skies, 
fanned by no cooling wind, left to perish in its sorrow 
by the zephyrs of the south sea, abandoned by vernal 
showers and summer floods, scorned by the mists that 
arise from the bosom of the deep, and the soft refresh¬ 
ing dews of heaven. Yet, sitting amidst the ashes of 
its faded beauty, mourning over blighted youth and 
lost hopes, Eden would still retain the magic of its 
former days, and distant tribes would come to visit the 
v land that once lay smiling beneath the shadow of angel 
wings, when the voice of infant humanity mingled 
with the echoes of the groves and the music of the 
streams. 

If God wished to annihilate the memory of Para¬ 
dise, he must have screened it with the veil of mystery, 
or buried it in the tomb of oblivion. Would he have 
obliterated its location from the mind of man? The 
theory is plausible, for the memory of Eden is linked 
with the memory of sin. To show his detestation of 
human ingratitude and infidelity, the Creator might 
have decreed that Paradise, the scene of man's first 
rebellion against heaven, be lost to all future genera¬ 
tions. 

But why should not the location of Sodom and 
Gomorrah be completely enveloped in a cloud of 
mystery and doubt? Tradition tells us that the Dead 
Sea chants its solemn dirge above the ruins of the 
silent cities, and for forty centuries and more, the fate 
of their inhabitants has been proclaimed to the world 
in the wail of the winds and the sigh of the waves. 
Has Eden been more faithful than Gomorrah ? Has 
the crime of Adam been outweighed by the iniquities 
of Sodom? Can we not presume, likewise, that God 
submerged Paradise that he might drown the memory 
of its sin in the waves of the deep? 


The Two Kingdoms. 


57 


Can we not presume that Nature, horrified by the 
ingratitude of man, expressed its sorrow and indigna¬ 
tion by a convulsive sigh, that .shook the earth and 
buried the scene of Adam’s rebellion in a flood of 
tears? When Christ expired on the cross, the veil of 
the temple was rent from top to bottom, and the earth 
quaked, and the rocks were split, and the sun hid his 
face in sorrow, and the shadow of death encircled the 
heavens from the sixth to the ninth hour. Are we 
not justified in presuming that a similar manifestation 
of sadness and disappointment, of anguish and wrath, 
was made when earth was first blighted by the curse 
of sin? In my opinion this is the only way to account 
for the loss of Eden to the human mind. 

Again, on this supposition, I might be able to offer 
a theory that would harmonize with the river system 
described in the Scriptural narrative. It is probable 
that an earthquake proclaimed the anger of God 
against the infidelity and ingratitude of man, and in 
this mighty convulsion, Eden sank below the surface 
of the deep, and the waves rushing in from the Arabian 
Sea, filled the depression, and formed what is now 
known as the Persian Gulf. This theory is consistent 
with the views of St. Thomas, who, while he does not 
maintain the location of Eden, thinks that it is pro¬ 
tected from human occupancy by insurmountable bar¬ 
riers, vast mountains, deadly atmosphere, severe cli¬ 
mate, or the waves of the deep. The first three sup¬ 
positions will not meet the objections that may be 
urged against them. 

Men would undoubtedly have explored the Gar¬ 
den of Eden despite atmospheric infections, morbific 
exhalations, or climatic intensity. Adventurers have 
penetrated into the heart of Africa, imperiling their 
lives in the miasma of its swamps and the heat and 


The Two Kingdchms. 


58 

aridity of its deserts. Scientists have explored the 
frozen zones of Siberia in quest of fossil remains of re¬ 
mote ages, the connecting link between man and beast. 
Navigators have exposed their lives amidst the fields 
of ice and snow that encompass the Arctic region, and 
cover the North Pole. No mountain is too high, and 
no sun is too hot to protect Eden from the foot of the 
restless adventurer, in search of ancient relics. 

By presuming that the Persian Gulf now flings its. 
crested waves over the Paradise of Joy, we can also 
account for the river system mentioned in the Bible. 
Major Rennel says, as we have seen, that before the 
time of Alexander the Great, the Tigris and Euphrates 
did not form a conjunction, but occupied distinct chan¬ 
nels in their course from north to south. It is possible 
those streams have been changed by the hypothetical 
convulsion supposed in these pages, and previous to 
the creation of the Persian Gulf, the Tigris and Eu¬ 
phrates might have flowed toward the Black and Cas¬ 
pian Seas, and ramified into the Ivizil and the Aras. 
By consulting the map we observe that these two rivers 
originate near the source of the Tigris and Euphrates. 
Eden having sunk, causing a great depression in the 
surface, which culminated in the extension of the Ara¬ 
bian Sea, w r e can perceive that the continuity of the 
Tigris and Euphrates was broken by the depression, 
and that the northern part of these streams flowed on 
as usual, forming the Kizil and Aras, and the southern 
parts changed their course and flowed back into the 
newly-created body of water known to-day as the 
Persian Gulf. It is possible, also, that the great river 
which the Bible says went out of Paradise and was di¬ 
vided into four heads might have been connected with 
the Nile and Ganges. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


59 


The theory of the disappearance of Eden is in ac¬ 
cord with geological and geographical transformations 
in other parts of the earth. Niebuhr and Burckhardt 
inform us that the Red Sea was much deeper and ex¬ 
tended much farther to the north in the time of Moses 
than at the present day. That Asia and America 
formed an unbroken continent at some distant period, 
is evinced by the narrowness of Bering Strait and the 
extreme shallowness of Bering Sea. This opinion is 
still further confirmed by the existence of the Aleutian 
Isles, whose chain suggests the idea that they are the 
remains of the lost lands, or perhaps the peaks of moun¬ 
tains that crowned the surface, when the two conti¬ 
nents were united. If we look over the map we notice 
a chain of islands extending from the China Sea to 
Australia and from there to America. “These numer¬ 
ous gardens of the sea, with their flora, rising in pro¬ 
fusion from watery beds, are the lofty peaks and ele¬ 
vated tablelands of a continent which formerly occu¬ 
pied a large pai;t of the Pacific Ocean.” 

Who has not read the story of the lost Atlantis, a 
vast region that, in remote times, stretched across the 
globe from the Pillars of Hercules to the West Indies 
and the shores of Columbia? The water along this 
road is but one-third the average depth of the ocean, 
and this remarkable shallowness, says Washington 
Irving, in his voyages of Columbus, led Genoa’s fear¬ 
less navigator to conclude that he was near land, when 
he was in reality far out upon the deep. This sup¬ 
posed country was called, by Plato, Atlantis, and the 
ocean which rolls its foamy billows over the mountain 
peaks of the lost Continent, is called, after it, the At¬ 
lantic Ocean. The Greek philosopher says that this 
country contained many large and populous cities, and 
that its people were wealthy beyond credence, and en- 


60 The Two Kingdoms. 

joyed a civilization of the purest, the noblest and the 
highest type. 

Like the ancient Phoenecians, the Atlantes were 
engaged in vast maritime enterprises. They had many 
large and important seaports, ships of the best make 
and most skillful workmanship, and they carried on 
trade with nations far and near. The story of Plato 
has been partially lost, but the fragment which has 
been preserved is amply sufficient to prove that the 
ancient Plellenes regarded Atlantis as a great country, 
and its inhabitants people of remarkable skill and 
energy. Plato writes: “Among the great deeds of 
Athens, of which recollection is preserved in our books, 
there is one which should be placed above all others. 
Our books tell that the Athenians destroyed an army 
which came across the Atlantic Sea, and insolently 
invaded Europe and Asia, for this sea was then navi¬ 
gable, and beyond the strait where you place the Pil¬ 
lars of Hercules there was an island larger than Asia 
Minor and Libya combined. From this island one 
could pass easily to the other islands, and from there 
to the continent which lies around the interior sea. 
The sea on this side of the strait resembles a harbor 
with a narrow entrance, but there is a genuine sea, and 
the land which surrounds it is a veritable continent. 

“In the Island of Atlantis reigned three kings with 
great and marvelous powers. They had under their 
dominion the whole of Atlantis, several other islands, 
and some parts of the continent. At one time their 
power extended into Libya and into Europe as far as 
Tyrrhenia, and, uniting their whole force, they sought 
to destroy our country at a blow; but their defeat 
stopped the invasion and gave entire independence to 
all the countries on this side of the Pillars of Hercules. 
Afterwards, in one day and one fateful night, there 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


6i 


came mighty earthquakes and inundations, which en¬ 
gulfed that warlike people. Atlantis disappeared be¬ 
neath the sea, and, then, that sea became inaccessible, 
so that navigation on it ceased, on account of the 
quantity of mud left in its place.” (Story of Man, p. 
44 -) ( 

“Solon had knowledge of Atlantis before he went 
to Egypt, but he heard there, for the first time, this 
account of their island, and of its disappearance in a 
frightful cataclysm. But Atlantis is mentioned by 
other ancient writers.” An extract taken from Pro- 
clus mentions the Island of Atlantis, and says that for 
“a long period it held dominion over all the islands of 
the Atlantic Ocean.” Pliny, Diodorus, Arnobius, and 
other eminent men of antiquity speak of this conti¬ 
nent. The story of Atlantis gains strength by the 
opinion of such famous authors as Brasseur, Bour- 
bourg, the renowned French scientists Moreau de 
Saint-Mery and Charles ^Martin, who says: “Hydro¬ 
graphy, geology and botany agree in teaching us that 
the Azores, the Canaries and Madeira are the remains 
of a great continent which formerly united Europe 
t'o North America.” (Ibid, p. 46.) 

The consensus of opinions has placed Eden in the 
vicinity of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. That 
region is the cradle of civilization. It was there that 
Noe and his family dwelt. It was there that the Ark 
of the Covenant was built. It was there that Abra¬ 
ham was called to be the founder of a house and race 
destined to outlive every tribe and every nation, every 
people and every tongue. It was there that the first 
great cities of the ancient world were established. All 
the discoveries of the nineteenth century point to that 
country as the cradle of our race. Since that section 
of the earth has never been depopulated, has never 


62 


The Two Kingdoms 


been abandoned to wild beasts and savage reptiles, 
since men have always dwelt in that region, it is im¬ 
possible that the precise location of Eden should be 
lost unless one presumes that it was submerged in a 
mighty cataclysm, like Atlantis and other lands that 
once bloomed amidst the waves of the deep. 

If we accept the theory that Eden has been sub¬ 
merged, then we are constrained to adopt the opinion 
that the Persian Gulf now occupies the site of the 
ancient garden, for the Persian Gulf is the only body 
of water in the vicinity of the rivers mentioned so fre¬ 
quently in connection with Paradise. This theory is 
also in accord with the opinion that the Tigris and Eu¬ 
phrates have been broken in their course by seismic 
convulsions, and now form four distinct rivers instead 
of four heads of one stream. 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


63 


CHAPTER III. 

HAS THE MILLENNIUM COME ? THE) MIDDLE) AGE- 
VIRTUES OE' THE) MIDDLE AGE. PAGANISM AND 
IDOLATRIES OF THE MIDDLE AGE. 

S OME writers have seen in the Middle Age the 
character of the Millennium. I will not dispar-, 
age that golden age when Christian nations 
worshiped at one shrine, and were guided by the voice 
of one shepherd. It was during this period of history 
that the light of Christian faith was exalted upon the 
mountain of the Lord, and all the nations of Europe 
saw its brightness, and came to walk in its glory. The 
Evangelists of the New Testament went forth like 
conquering legions, to take possession of heathen lands 
in the name of a Crucified God. The flag of Christi¬ 
anity was borne in triumph from the ruins of Carthage 
and Hippo to the mountains of Scandinavia, and from 
the isles of the western main to the frozen regions of 
Siberia. 

Hail, glorious age! Age of faith, hope and char¬ 
ity ! Age of great and illustrious men, and pure, de¬ 
vout women! Age of saints and heroes! Thy con¬ 
quests are written on every city and town,, every vil¬ 
lage and hamlet, from the Gulf of Bothnia to the shores 
of the Bosphorus. Thy achievements are displayed 
in the ruins of pagan shrines and in the transformation 
of heathen temples. Thy history is inscribed on the 
rocks of the Pyrenees, on the crags of the Apennines, 


6 4 


The Two Kingdoms. 


on the peaks of the Alps, on the stones of Venice and 
the hills of Rome, on the walls of Naples and the gates 
of Genoa. Hail, glorious age! Thy victories are 
manifested in the museums of London and Edinburgh, 
Paris and Munich, Brussels and Vienna; in the gal¬ 
leries of Florence and Milan, Lyons and Cordova, 
Salzburg and Treves; in the universities of Fribourg 
and Innsbruck, Siena and Perugia, Oxford and Cam¬ 
bridge ; in the schools and libraries of Italy and Spain, 
France and Germany, Holland and Belgium. 

Hail, glorious age! Thy character is impressed 
on Cologne and Heidelburg, Madrid and Toledo, Or¬ 
leans and Rome. Flail, glorious age! The triumphs 
of thy march are seen on the shores of the Rhine and 
the Seine, the Reuss and the Rhone, the Elbe and the 
Danube; and the story of thy splendor is sung by the 
rippling waves of the Vistula and the Volga, the Oder 
and the Meuse, the Tagus and the Ebro. Hail, glori¬ 
ous age! The shadow of thy greatness rests on all 
the streams and on all the seas, on all the lakes and on 
all the bays, on all the mountains and on all the vales, 
on all the forests and on all the moors of Christian 
Europe. 

It was during this age that Augustine, with forty 
missionaries, landed on the shores of Britain to re¬ 
claim the savage tribes from the abominations of 
Druidism. The Apostles of the Church went forth, 
not as mailed hosts, panoplied in steel and armed 
with lance and spear and battleax; they went forth, not 
as legions, floating the banner of conquest, and march¬ 
ing to the sound of martial strains, like the Roman 
cohorts, anxious to baptize the nation with the blood 
of ruthless victory, and place it under the dominion of 
the imperial eagles; but with the symbol of the Cross 
for their weapon, and the Gospel of peace and love for 


The Two Kingdoms. 65 

their message, they took possession of Albion in the 
name of God the Redeemer, and gave it recognition 
among the kingdoms which formed the grand Com¬ 
monwealth of Christendom. 

In order to comprehend the full benefit of mediae¬ 
val civilization, we must take a rapid survey of the 
world previous to that period. The great Teutonic 
race then occupied the wilds of Europe. They lived 
in a state of nature, and their religion was akin to the 
cult of the ancient Persians. While there was much 
sublimity in their conceptions of the divinity, there 
was much that was low and vulgar, and much that 
impeded the elevation of their moral instincts. They 
had their Trinity known, according to Caesar, as the 
Sun, Vulcan and the Moon, and according to Tacitus, 
as Mercury, Hercules and Mars. Woutan stood on 
the eternal hills and gazed down upon the occupations 
of men, or led the throng in a wild career through the 
air on a hunting expedition, and formed the hosts in 
battle array. Hulda was the wild huntress who de¬ 
lighted to sport with savage beasts in the forests. Be¬ 
sides these divinities, there were the gods of thunder 
and lightning, the gods of storms and tempests, the 
gods of clouds and whirlwinds. 

The Scandinavians had a far more savage history 
than the Germans. In the beginning of time, accord¬ 
ing to the traditions of their .’'ace, ‘'there was neither 
heaven nor earth, but universal chaos, and a bottom¬ 
less abyss, where dwelt Surtur in an element of un¬ 
quenchable fire. The generations of their gods pro¬ 
ceeded amid the darkness and void from the union of 
heat and moisture, until Odin and the other children 
of Asa-Thor, or the Earth, slew Ymer, or the Evil One, 
and created the material universe out of his lifeless 
remains. The hall of Odin, which had five hundred 


66 


The Two Kingdoms. 


and forty gates, was the abode of heroes who had 
fought most bravely in battle. Here they were fed 
with the lard of a wild boar, which became whole every 
night, though devoured every day, and drank endless 
cups of hydromel, drawn from the udder of an inex¬ 
haustible she-goat, and served out to them by the 
Nymphs, who had counted the slain, in cups which 
were made of the skulls of their enemies. When they 
wearied of such enjoyment, the spirits of the brave 
exercised themselves in single combat, hacked each 
other to pieces on the floor of Valhalla, resumed their 
former shapes, and returned to their lard and their 
hydromel.” 

Such was the barbarous worship of the Scandi¬ 
navians, and such, I might say, in substance, was the 
cult of all the northern tribes. Can we ever sufficiently 
appreciate the services of an age which threw the glor¬ 
ious luster of the Gospel over nations wandering 
amidst the shadows and gloom of a religion so replete 
with horror, so pregnant with fear, so redolent of 
hatred, so inimical to love and mercy? The bloody 
Asgard of the far East and the city of Nor have van¬ 
ished before the resplendent light of a divine revela¬ 
tion, and the martial tribes of the North look for an 
eternity of love and joy, purified from the carnal lusts 
and savage feats that filled the paradise of their ances¬ 
tors with vengeful deities and malicious sprites. 

The religions of the heathen Goths and Scythians, 
and the savage hordes that lurked within the deep re¬ 
cesses of Central Europe, or in the primeval forests of 
Ponnomia, or along the coasts of the Euxine, or hard 
bv the shores of the Baltic, were as heartless and as 
cruel as the religions of Greece and Rome ; and the 
gods of the wild nomads, wandering ovbr the bleak 
plains of Gaul and the moors of the Netherlands, were 
as vindictive as the gods of Egypt and Babylonia. 


The- Two Kingdoms. 67 

Can we ever forget the splendor of an age that 
nursed the giants who went forth and conquered the 
lawless tribes and converted the wild wastes and desert 
plains of Europe into fertile fields and rich meadows? 
which exchanged the rude villages for magnificent 
cities, and navigated the lordly rivers that swept the 
cultivated hills and laved the foot of gigantic moun¬ 
tains, and .kissed the robes of smiling vales ? Can we 
ever forget the noble deeds of Boniface and his co¬ 
religionists, who went forth from home and fatherland 
to brave the perils of the German forests, and civilize 
the people who had wandered for ages amidst their 
great mountains, and through their stately woods, and 
bosky plains, and shady groves ? Can we ever blot 
out the memory of those illustrious heroes who bent 
their footsteps toward the land of the midnight sun, 
and planted the faith of the Apostles on the shores of 
the German Ocean, and by the waves of the Zuvder 
Zee? 

Can France ever fully measure the debt of grati¬ 
tude that she owes to the evangelist of the nation, who 
crossed the snow-clad Alps and preached to the Gallic 
hosts, as they were marching to the bloody field ? who 
baptized her magnanimous king and converted his gal¬ 
lant army? who began a civilization that culminated 
in placing Gaul among the foremost nations of the 
earth, adorned with all the glory of genius, arrayed 
with all the triumphs of art ? 

Can the enlightenment of the nineteenth century 
be indifferent to an age that preserved the civilization 
of antiquity, that treasured up the poems of ancient 
bards, that revived the memories of the heroic dead, 
by cherishing their sublime thoughts, their grand 
works, their achievements in painting and in sculpture, 
and thus prolonging the glory of Greece and Rome, 


68 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


giving voice to lips that have returned to dust and 
ashes, calling forth from the mists of centuries the faces 
of men that once sat in the councils of the wise and 
in the assemblies of the great, robing the skeletons of 
the past with the flesh of the living, rescuing from the 
grave the shades of Homer and Hesiod, Horace and 
Virgil, Plato and Socrates, Plautus and Terence, 
Pythagoras and Aristotle? 

It was the Middle Age that broke the chains from 
the limbs of the slave; that gave freemen a right to sit 
in the legislative hall; that created charters for the 
cities of Spain and Italy, France and Germany; that 
checked the pretensions of kings and curtailed the 
power of feudal lords; that erected those grand com¬ 
monwealths of Europe, from which the culture and 
splendor and glory of our generation have originated. 

Nor need I stop here and say, Behold the grand¬ 
eur of the Middle Age! To comprehend our debt to 
those centuries, which elapsed from the downfall of 
the Roman empire until the Crescent was erected upon 
the walls of Constantinople, a period of a thousand 
years, we must weigh well the difficulties that lay in 
the march of progress—difficulties of a moral, political 
and racial nature. When the power of the Caesars 
was destroyed on the shores of the Tiber, the Goth, 
the Scythian and the Vandal awoke from their moun¬ 
tain glens and mighty forests and dismal swamps, 
and the shout of war resounded from the Black Sea to 
the isles of the.western ocean. The shadow of death 
lay upon all Europe. The old civilization, with its 
refinement and vices, had passed away, and the rude 
barbarian pitched his tent upon the ruins of cities 
which the eloquence of orators, the songs of poets, the 
chisel of the sculptor, and the brush of the painter had 
immortalized. 


The Two Kingdoms. 69 

The noblest works of art perished in this mighty, 
sweeping cataclysm of people and races. Temples 
were converted into barracks for the soldiers of the 
conquerors; galleries were consigned to flames; pal¬ 
aces were destroyed; laws were abolished; schools 
were used for banqueting halls; the lance took the 
place of the pen; the battle ax supplanted the scepter; 
the camp occupied the place of the court; the ordeal by 
fire was substituted for the tribunal of justice; the 
voice of the muse was silenced by the cry of battle, 
and the strains of the harp were lost amidst the songs 
of revelry that celebrated the triumphs of the war-god. 

It was a society like this, a society composed of 
the worst elements of barbarism, devoid of education, 
devoid of moral sentiment, devoid of elevated aspira¬ 
tions, devoid of lofty ambitions, devoid of every princi¬ 
ple that makes men noble and nations great; a society 
of nomads, whose conceptions of justice were drawn 
from nature, in which the wisdom of the wise and the 
virtue of the pure were ignored; a society that recog¬ 
nized no restraint of the passions; that glorified 
strength; that adored physical courage; that deified 
brute force and divinized the successful warrior; it was 
a society like this, composed of every tribe, race and 
tongue, that Christianity was to elevate, instruct, edu¬ 
cate and form into organized states and governments. 

For the last three hundred years every denomina¬ 
tion of Christendom has been endeavoring to carry the 
blessing of civilization to the people of Asia and Africa; 
and yet the temples of Buddha and Brahman cast their 
shadows upon the streets of every city and upon the 
crest of every mountain from the Kara Sea to the Gulf 
of Siam, and sacrifices are still made to heathen idols 
among every tribe from Tripoli to Cape Colony. 
When the enlightenment, wealth and energy of three 


7o 


The Two Kingdoms. 


centuries have accomplished so little among the 
heathens of two continents, we should be unceasing in 
our praise of the changes wrought in benighted Europe 
during the first Millennium from the destruction of 
the Roman empire in the West to the end of the 
Christian empire in the East. 

Nor can we pass over in silence the great names 
that glorified every century of the Middle Age. The 
virtues of Asaph and Genevieve, Benedict and Remi- 
gius, Clotilda and Gildas, Gregory of Tours and Au¬ 
gustine of Canterbury, shed, a halo of glory on the 
sixth century. It-was during this period that Monte 
Cassino rose beautifully above the blue waves of the 
Mediterranean, and attracted the holy and pure to seek 
refuge within its consecrated walls. Gertrude and 
Maximus, Eligius and Adamnan, Adhelm of Malmes¬ 
bury and John of Beverly, crowned by their sanctity, 
the conquests that had been made in heathen lands. 
Wilbrord and Egbert, Alcuin and Anscar, Ignatius and 
Neot, Remo and Odo, are among the few illustrious 
names whose deeds glorified the eighth and ninth cen¬ 
turies. Their achievements were enhanced by the la¬ 
bors and virtues of Bruno and Dustan, Oswald and 
Lanfranc, Stephen of Hungary and Peter Damian, 
Walstan and Osmond, Norbert and Ingulphus. The 
following age was immortalized by the learning and 
piety of Bernard and Dominic, Peter Lombard and 
Thomas of Canterbury, Longchamp of Ely and Fran¬ 
cis of Assisi. 

We must not overlook, the conversion of Fries¬ 
land, and of the Saxons, the evangelization of Den¬ 
mark and Sweden, and the fact that Prussia and Bul¬ 
garia, Bohemia and Normandy, became new stars in 
the constellation of Christianity during this period. 
The establishments of the Cistercians, Carthusians, 


The Two Kingdoms. 71 

Carmelites, Clares, Franciscans, and the foundation of 
other religious orders were the instruments that ac¬ 
complished so much in the spiritual renovation of 
Europe, Anthony of Padua, Alexander of Hales, 
Robert Grossetete and Thomas Aquinas, Louis the 
Ninth of France, and Hugh de Balsham, Bonaven- 
ture and John Duns Scotus, Catherine of Sienna, and 
the saintly Bridget, William of Wyckham and William 
of Waynflete, Thomas of Kempis and Francis de 
Paula, are a few among the many glorious names of 
that age that we pronounce with reverence. 

In studying mediaeval history we must not over¬ 
look the spirit of charity that prevailed in the Christian 
Church. In those days there were no paupers; for 
the monasteries, supported by the legacies of kings 
and noblemen, were the homes of the poor and unfor¬ 
tunate. Within those hallowed retreats, the stranger 
and the pilgrim sat side by side with crowned heads 
and knighted heroes. “Christianity, for the first 
time, made charity a rudimentary virtue, giving it a 
leading place in the moral type and in the exhortations 
of its teachers. Besides its general influence in stimu¬ 
lating the affections, it effected a complete revolution 
in this sphere, by regarding the poor as the special 
representatives of the Christian Founder, and thus 
making the love of Christ, rather than the love of man, 
the principle of charity. Enthusiasm for charity dis¬ 
played itself in the erection of numerous institutions 
that were altogether unknown to the Pagan world. A 
Roman lady, named Fabiola, in the fourth century, 
founded at Rome, as an act of penance, the first public 
hospital; and the charity planted by that woman’s 
hand, overspread the world, and will alleviate, to the 
end of time, the darkest anguish of humanity.” 
(Leckv’s Hist, of European Morals, vol. 2nd, pp. 79, 
80.) 


72 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


After enumerating the founders of many asylums 
for the poor and unfortunate, the widow and the or¬ 
phan, for the afflicted and the diseased, the stranger 
and the pilgrim, the author continues: “To provide 
for the interests of widows and orphans was a part of 
the official ecclesiastical duty; and a Cardinal of Macon 
anathematized any ruler who brought them to trial 
without first apprising the Bishop of the diocese. A 
Cardinal of Toledo, in the fifth century, threatened 
with excommunication all who robbed priests, monks, 
or poor men. or refused to listen to their expostula¬ 
tions. As time rolled on, charity assumed many forms, 
and every monastery became a center from which it 
radiated. By the monks, the nobles were overawed, 
the poor protected, the sick tended, travelers sheltered, 
prisoners ransomed, the remotest sphere of suffering 
explored. During the darkest period of the Middle 
Ages, monks founded a refuge for pilgrims amid the 
horrors of the Alpine snows. A solitary hermit often 
planted himself, with his little boat, by a bridgeless 
stream, and the charity of his life was to ferry over the 
traveler. When the hideous disease of leprosy extend¬ 
ed its ravages over Europe, when the minds of men 
were filled with terror, not only by its loathsomeness 
and its contagion, but also by the notion that it was, 
in a peculiar sense, supernatural, new hospitals and 
refuges overspread Europe and monks flocked in mul¬ 
titudes to serve in them.” (Ibid, pp. 83, 84.) 

Nor can we forget the art of the Middle Age—art 
which displayed its majesty in vast cathedral domes 
and spires that seemed to kiss the sunbeams and rest 
their heads in the fleecy clouds. Henry Giles, a Uni¬ 
tarian minister, has beautifully illustrated the grandeur 
of mediaeval art. “As we advance into the Middle 
Ages, we observe the Christian ideal unfolding itself in 


The Two Kingdoms. 


73 


art of imposing majesty and of exceeding beauty. A 
Gothic Cathedral seemed an epitome of Creation. In 
its vastness, it was a sacramental image of the uni¬ 
verse ; in its diversity, it resembled nature; and in its 
unity it suggested God. But it suggested man, too. 
It was the work of man’s hand, shaping the solemn 
visions of his soul into embodied adoration. It was 
therefore the grandest symbol v of union between the 
divine and human which imagination ever conceived, 
which art ever molded, and it was in being symbolic of 
such union, that it had its Christian peculiarity. The 
model of its structure was a perpetual commemora¬ 
tion of Christ’s suffering, and a sublime publication of 
his glory. Its ground plan in the figure of a cross 
was emblematic of Calvary. Its pinnacles, which 
tapered through the clouds and vanished into light, 
pointed to those heavens to which the Crucified had 
ascended. Here is the mystery of death and of sor¬ 
row. 

“Again, if we look through a vast Cathedral and 
its many dim-lit passages, our sight ‘in wandering 
mazes lost’ finds no end and no beginning. . It is all 
mystery and immensity. Its awful spaces of naves 
and aisles carry our thoughts away into the amplitude 
of God’s dominions. Its bold and lofty arches lift 
them up to the battlements of his throne. The mere 
gloom of a silent Cathedral has power in it. In the 
stillness of its spacious obscurity, solemn voices 
awaken in the heart that have impressive meanings for 
the soul. When we behold these structures in their 
solidity, as looking onward to centuries, or as having 
survived centuries, they draw us into communication 
with the mysteries of duration, and, pacing within 
them, reading the inscriptions that recall the memory 
of the dead, we turn from what has perished in the past 


74 


The Two Kingdoms. 


to that which is eternal with everlasting life. And 
when we gaze upward and outside to their dizzy eleva¬ 
tion, to their pinnacles, which grow beneath from 
massive towers to points invisible towards the stars, we 
mount with them, stage by stage, until we, like them, 
lose ourselves in the skies. 

“The Christian Cathedral gains in force of life, as 
it gains in majesty of size; it is mystic with the mystery 
of the soul, and it is durable as the symbol of eternity. 
To the multitude which it gathered into its courts, it 
shadowed forth things which the senses could not 
comprehend, and it points to an existence far away 
above the earth. Must not faith and hope in this un¬ 
seen existence have been conceived in the creation 
of the Christian Cathedral ? Was it not the soul, reach¬ 
ing to its sublimest strivings, which placed turret above 
tower and spire above turret, until the cross, over all, 
seemed to melt away into immortal life? I love with 
the strength of early love the sacred structures of the 
Middle Ages. I speak of them not with the knowledge 
’ of science, but with the feelings of memory. The 
rustic parish church, the pontifical Cathedral, though 
all unroofed, were even in their desolation lovely, and 
more days than I can now remember, they were my 
lonely shelter from the sun of summer noontide. 
There in such visions as under the spells of hoary 
Time the young imagination dreams, I have built those 
ruins up again, flung out the sound of matin chimes 
upon the morning air, awakened, once more, at sunset, 
the vesper hymn, called from the sleeping dust prelates, 
priests, choristers, congregations, bade the long pro¬ 
cession move, caused the lofty altars to blaze with 
light, listened to the chanted Mass, heard the swelling- 
responses of surpliced singers, and thrilled with the 
reverberations of the mighty organ. Even now, in 


The Two Kingdoms. 


75 


hours of idle musing, the dream comes back and the 
form of a pinetree projected on the sunshine of Maine 
or New Hampshire or Massachusetts, can still cheat 
me for a moment to believe in the shadow of an ancient 
spire. Such temples, though silent, had a language of 
deep meaning ; silent to the ear, this language was to 
the soul. They told me of the power, the earnestness 
of faith. They told me of men in other days, strong in 
conviction, patient in hope, and persevering in believ¬ 
ing work. They told me of the ancient dead. They 
told me how generations have come and passed away 
like the changes of a dream, how centuries are less 
than seconds on the horologe of the universe. They 
proclaimed eternity in the presence of the tomb, and 
announced immortality on the ashes of the grave. A 
Cathedral amplifies the soul; a noble statue calms it; 
glorious pictures illumine it; sublime music inspires it; 
and thus bv the majesty of the temple, the embodied 
eloquence of its sculpture, the saintly beauty of its 
paintings, the divine harmonies, the subtle rapture of 
its music, the consecrated genius of a thousand years, 
ministers to the life of a moment and makes the life of 
that moment seem in its power an image of eternity.” 
(Giles’ Lectures, p. 321-330.) 

I have merely enumerated a few of the achieve¬ 
ments of the Middle Age. A volume, nay, volumes, 
would fail to do justice to the subject. Yet the elo¬ 
quence of oratory and the feeling of poetry could not 
magnify the perfection of the Middle Age to such a 
degree as to force upon the mind of the thoughtful that 
the prophecies, pertaining to the reign of Christ upon 
earth, were fulfilled in that age. 

There is no truth in Scripture more emphatically 
announced than the universality of Christianity. One 
thousand years before the Spouse of Christ was born 


7 6 


The Two Kingdoms. 


amidst the agonies of Calvary, and the glory of Pente¬ 
cost, the inspired Psalmist beheld this great empire 
spreading its wings over the world and the nations of 
the earth, seeking refuge within the confines of its 
sacred walls. “And he shall rule from sea to sea, and 
from the river unto the ends of the earth.” (Psalm 
71-8.) 

Three hundred years later the same glorious vision 
was granted to Isaias, and in ecstacies of joy he ex¬ 
claimed as the unconscious evangelist of the unborn 
Redeemer: “Fear not, for I am with thee: I will 
bring thy seed from the east and gather thee from the 
west. I will say to the north: Give up; and to the 
south: Keep not back; bring my sons from afar, and 
my daughters from the ends of the earth.” (Isaias 
43-5.) Many centuries before the birth of Juda’s great 
prophet; when Israel was a wanderer over the bleak 
desert and sandy plains of Arabia; before the building 
of the temple, when the multitude adored the God of 
Abraham in the tabernacle, protected from the sun of 
day by the shadow of a cloud, and from the darkness 
of night by a pillar of flame, Moses, illuminated with 
the light of prophecy, looked down the vista of ages 
and saw the passage of generations from life to death, 
and the history of races from the cradle to the grave, 
the fall of Babylon, the decay of Egypt, the sunset of 
civilization over the highlands of Western Asia, and 
the sunrise of art and genius on the gulf of Ionia and 
by the shores of the Tyrrhene Sea. Amidst the re¬ 
splendent glory of Greece and Rome, and the proud 
triumphs of the centuries that inherited the classic lore 
of the ancient Muse, he saw the universal dominion of 
Christendom. Speaking in the name of the great Je¬ 
hovah, who had dispersed the waves and scattered the 
winds, he said: “In thy seed shall all the nations of the 
earth be blessed.” (Gen. 22-18.) 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


77 


The Bible is full of prophecies relating to the un¬ 
bounded empire of Christ. “The Lord hath said to 
me: Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee: 
ask of me and T will give thee the Gentiles for thy 
inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy 
possession.” (Psalm 2-7.) “All the ends of the earth 
shall remember, and shall be converted to the Lord: 
and all the kindreds of the Gentiles shall adore in his 
sight. For the kingdom is the Lord’s and he shall 
have dominion over the nations.” (Psalm 21-28.) 

Speaking of the Apostles of the New Testament, 
the royal prophet said: “Their sound hath gone forth 
into all the earth: and their words unto the ends of the 
world.” (Psalm 18-5.) The history of prophecy in 
Israel was closed with the solemn promise that the 
kingdom of the Savior would be recognized in every 
land gladdened by the light of heaven. 

Shortly after the return of Juda from the captiv¬ 
ity of Babylon and the rebuilding of the temple, whose 
desolation had swept the harp of Jeremias, Malachias 
ignited the smoldering embers of hope that lay dor¬ 
mant amid the ashes of faded glory, by recording the 
unborn triumphs of the Church. “From the rising of 
the sun even to the going down, my name is great 
among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts.” (Mai. 
i-ii.) 

The promises made to the house of Israel by God- 
sent prophets are renewed and confirmed by the lips 
of Infinite wisdom himself, incarnate in the person of 
Jesus Christ. “And this gospel of the kingdom shall 
be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all 
nations.” (Matth. 24-14.) And he commanded his 
apostles to go forth into every land and “teach all 
nations.” (Matth. 28.) 


yS The Two Kingdom? 

What was the purpose of that commission ? That 
every tribe and people and country might know Him, 
and every knee bend at the sound of his name, and 
every tongue sing his praise and glory in this life, and 
during the eternal cycles be united with the celestial 
choirs in hymns and canticles of love and adoration. 
“And other sheep I have that are not of this fold: them 
also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and 
there shall be one fold and one shepherd.” (John 
10-16.) 

The purpose of the incarnation of the divinity was 
not only to prepare a sacrifice of infinite value to atone 
for the transgressions of humanity, but to give man a 
divine teacher, whose doctrines would deliver earth 
from the burden of iniquity under which it had 
groaned for centuries. The human heart was black 
with the gangrene of vice, charred with the flame of 
passion. Its affections were estranged, its aspirations 
were misplaced, its possibilities for good were ruined. 
The sweet aroma of love, the perfume of virtue, the 
flower of purity and sanctity were poisoned like the 
scent-laden breath of the morning with the miasma of 
the desert. 

To restore the dogma of monotheism, in contradis¬ 
tinction to the fallacies and absurdities of polytheism, 
the sublimity of the Deity begotten before all ages by 
the force of its essence, instead of the groveling and 
vulgar conceptions of divine generations according to 
the pagan idea, was the first and supreme motive of the 
human life of Christ. With the doctrine of an eternal, 
infinite and immutable Deity was interwoven the dis¬ 
tinction between right and wrong, the conception of 
moral responsibility and the idea of future rewards and 
punishments. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


79 


But how could the nations of the earth abandon 
their ancestral divinities, cast down their idols, over¬ 
throw their temples, accept the moral code of Chris¬ 
tianity, and be justly punished for every violation of 
the decalogue, every infringement of the Gospel, and 
every act of irreverence against the authority of Christ, 
if they have not been convinced of his divine mission ? 
Therefore, the Savior of mankind, having entered the 
sphere of a teacher for the purpose of uplifting human¬ 
ity and of fructifying the earth with the lily of purity 
and the flower of sanctity, must have designed and 
determined that his doctrine would be as universal as 
the rays of the sun, and gladden with its light every 
child of our race. 

Hence, the Church of Christ must be extended 
into every land; the Cross must be erected on every 
shore, and the banner of the Nazarene must flutter in 
every breeze and wave beneath the blue of every sky. 
It is with sorrow that I acknowledge that during the 
palmiest days of Christian triumph more than two- 
thirds of the nations were buried in the shadows of 
pagan superstition. For thousands of years the far 
East has been the abode of cults entirely different from, 
and in many respects repugnant to, the pure tenets of 
Christianity. For the moment I will say nothing of 
the philosophy of the two great religions prevalent in 
Asia, especially in China and India, but shall give a 
partial view into the purely pagan worship of that 
benighted continent. 

The Celestial empire harbors within its bosom 
three classes of pagans. Laokum, who lived five hun¬ 
dred years before Christ, has many followers even to 
this day, and they give divine homage not only to the 
founder of their sect, but also to some of the great 
emperors, and a host of spirits, whom they adore as 


8o 


The Two Kingdoms. 


lesser lights in the” divine genealogy, under the name 
Of Yamte, and who are supposed to preside over every 
element. China is covered with temples, altars and 
shrines dedicated to the memory of Foe, who flour¬ 
ished six hundred years before Christ, and who donned 
the divine toga at the early age of thirty years. The 
interior doctrine of this sect is a pure, unmixed 
atheism, discarding the idea of immortality, future 
rewards and punishments, acknowledging no God, 
except an abyss of nothingness, and making the su¬ 
preme happiness of man to consists in a state of inac¬ 
tivity and perfect quietude and total insensibility. 

I admit that the tenets of Confucius, the third 
sect, contain many noble laws and elevated concep¬ 
tions. but yet it is paganism, pure and simple, for it 
gives divine homage to a philosopher, whose life was 
closed more than two thousand years ago. 

If we leave the land of Confucius and go into the 
realm of the Mikado, we find the disciples of Sinto, the 
disciples of Budsc and the religion of the philosophers 
and moralists, all pagan, some even grossly pagan, 
believing in the transmigration of souls into a lower 
and viler state of existence in punishment for the sin,s 
of life. 

The abominations of Lamaism among the Tartars 
have no parallel in history. On the summit of the 
mountain whose shadow falls upon the waters of the 
Barampooter, a short distance from Lahassa, there is 
a vast palace appropriated to the sole use of the high 
priest of this degrading cult. Around the foot of this 
mountain, twenty thousand lamas reside, who form 
the court of the sovereign pontiff or grand lama. This 
renowned personage, renowned among a benighted 
people, the lost tribes of the Mongolian race, is adored 
not only by the Thibetans, but also by all the Tartars 


The Two Kingdoms. 


8i 


\vlio roam over those vast tracts of country lying be¬ 
tween the Sandy Desert and the Gulf of Corea. They 
regard him as the Deity, the God of the universe, 
whose spirit never dies, but passes from man to man, 
and is thus made an everlasting reality, a divine incar¬ 
nation, whose sovereignty is perpetuated from age to 
age by an unbroken succession. 

Whenever the Grand Lama dies, or goes away, as 
they call his departure, the disciples of this creed give 
themselves to prayer and fasting, while a delegation is 
commissioned to consult a soothsayer to ascertain 
whither the spirit of God has vanished. The sooth¬ 
sayer, after he has fully consulted his books of divina¬ 
tion, pronounces his oracle. He says: “Your Grand 
Lama has appeared in Thibet [or in some other place 
which he designates] ; he has appeared in the family 
of a certain bonze; as a child of that family he has been 
begotten, and the spirit of life eternal dwells in him. ,, 
The glad tidings are announced to all the tribes of 
Mongolia; the news is borne by swift messengers to 
the plains of Thibet, to the summit of the Altai Moun¬ 
tains, beyond the rocks of the Himalayas to the 
borders of Nepaul and the countries lying south of the 
Chinese empire; and prayers of thanksgiving and 
songs of praise go up from millions of lips. 

If we leave the land of the Mogul and traverse the 
sultry plains of India, we, at this day, meet with super¬ 
stitions more revolting than the serpent worship of the 
ancients. R. C. Caldwell, as quoted by Dr. Geikie, 
describes the demoniacal performance of a devil- 
dancer. “A circle was formed and a fire lit; the offer¬ 
ings—goats and fowls, rice, pulse, sugar, honey, 
oleander blossoms, etc.—were got ready; tomtoms 
were loudly and rapidly beaten; the assembly expected 
in silent awe the devil-dancer to come out of his hut. 


82 


Thk Two Kingdoms. 


Finally he came, a tall, haggard man, with deep-sunken 
eyes and matted hair, his forehead smeared with ashes, 
and streaks of vermilion and saffron over his face. 
Then there is a sudden yell, a stinging, stunning cry, 
an ear-piercing shriek, and the devil-dancer has sprung 
to his feet, with eyes protruding, mouth foaming, chest 
heaving, muscles quivering, and outstretched arms 
swollen and straining. Now ever and anon the quick, 
sharp words are jerked out of the saliva-choked mouth, 
‘I am God. I am the true God.’ Then all around him, 
since he and no idol is regarded as the present deity, 
reeks the blood of sacrifice. Shrieks, vows, impreca¬ 
tions, prayers and exclamations of thankful praise rise 
up, all blended together in one infernal hubbub. Above 
all rise the ghastly , guttural laughter of the devil-dancer 
and his stentorian howls, ‘I am God; I am the only 
true God V He cuts and hacks and hews himself, and 
not very unfrequently kills himself, there and then. 
Hours pass by. The trembling crowd stands rooted 
to the spot. Suddenly the dancer gives a great bound 
in the air; when he descends he is motionless.” (The 
Spirit of Darkness, pp. 170-1,) 

Along the desert of Caramania toward the Persian 
.Gulf, and in the province of Yerd Reran, the traveler 
meets the sect of Guebers, who are identical in worship 
with the Parsees of India. They adore the sun as the 
source of light and the fountain of goodness, and detest 
and execrate darkness as the primitive cause of evil; 
and they worship fire as the incomprehensible God. 
Four thousand years ago the holy places of Persia were 
illumined and inflamed by a fire which Zoroaster en¬ 
kindled, and which has been blazing uninterruptedly 
through all the centuries. 

Eastern Asia, from Wrangel Island to the Bay of 
Bengal, is covered with the fanes of false gods, and 


The Two Kingdoms. 


83 


every plain and every mountain is alive with the voice 
of false prophets. The temples of Buddha and Brah¬ 
man lift their pinnacles above the desert wastes of 
Gobi, within the shadow of the Hingan peaks, upon 
the ruins of the ancient wall of China, on the banks of 
the Hoang Ho and the shores of the Yellow Sea, 
amidst the canyons of the Peling Mountains and the. 
rocks and crags of the Nanling, bv the Canton River 
and the Gulf of Tonquin, along the valley of the Indus 
and the Ganges, on the mountain slopes of Hindoostan 
and on the fertile, sultry plains of Farther India. 

Asia is a land of darkness. The shadow of death 
is upon all the continent. For thousands of years 
sacrificial flames have blazed on pagan altars; and 
temples, adorned with the .wealth of the Orient, have 
been dedicated to pagan gods. The light of the Gospel 
shone upon Asia, but it was like the glimmering day of 
an Arctic winter; the twliight shades of eve fell upon 
the aurora of the eastern skies, leaving the land 
wrapped in the sable robes of night. 

Oh. land of our ancestors, birthplace of humanity, 
cradle of our race, land of Eden, the paradise of joy, 
home of our first parents, the favorite haunt of shining 
angels, smiling upon the innocence of stainless souls 
and guileless hearts; land of patriarchs and prophets, 
heroes and sages, sacred to the memory of all ages by 
the life, sufferings and death of an Incarnate God, how 
has thy glory faded! No longer does the breath of 
God consecrate thy rivers and thy groves, thy moun¬ 
tains and thy vales; no longer do the shadows of 
angels hover over the ramparts of thy cities and lead 
thy mailed hosts to glorious victories. No more does 
the voice of prophecy echo along thy hallowed streams, 
and mingle with the music of thy seas, and the wail of 
thy woods, and the sigh of thv breezes. Thou art for- 


8 4 


Thk Two Kingdoms. 


lorn. The hand of God is upon thee. The altar of 
Israel is stained with the blood of human victims, and 
the temple of truth has become the tower of Babel, fit 
symbol of the jargon of thy cult. The priests of the 
Levitical race have been ostracized by the bonzes of 
heathenish rites, and sacrifices in honor of Jehovah, 
' whose mighty arm divided the waves and arrested the 
progress of the sea, have been supplanted by bloody 
oblations offered to the memory of Belial. 

Yet the disciples of Buddha and Brahman, the 
devotees who assemble around the altars of Sinto and 
Budso, the fire-worshipers of Persia and India, and the 
Sabians who adore the glittering stars, the idolaters 
of Madagascar and the pagans who encircle the shrines 
of Polynesia with mysterious rites and beneficent 
charms, are far superior in their religious ideas to the 
disciples of African fetichism. Bev. P. Baudin, a mis¬ 
sionary among the natives of the Dark Continent, 
gives us a vivid picture of the disgusting worship of 
those benighted savages. 

“The European on arriving in Guinea encounters 
at every step in the negro villages idols of wood or 
clay as grotesque as they are unclean, rudely made and 
daubed with cock’s blood and palm oil by their stupid 
adorers. One glance suffices to fill the European with 
contempt for this worship; but when he soon learns 
these shapeless divinities thirst for human blood, and 
that human victims are immolated to appease them, 
immediately adding indignation to contempt, he ex¬ 
ecrates fetiches and fetich worshipers, considering 
them hereafter unworthy his attention.” (The Spirit 
of Darkness, p. 168.) 

Among the negroes of Congo, each town has a 
grand kissey, or presiding divinity, like unto the mu¬ 
nicipal triads of ancient Egypt. The kissey is the 


The; Two Kingdoms. 


85 


figure of a man stuck with feathers, rags, iron and 
other articles, making an object that would serve ad¬ 
mirably for a scarecrow. The Kolloh, or great spirit, 
is supposed to dwell in the vicinity of Yangroo, in 
Western Africa, and this divinity is made of bamboo 
sticks in the form of an oval basket. The serpent, tall 
trees and the sea are the principal fetiches of Whidah. 
The snake has a peculiar charm for these untutored 
savages. They believe that it is omnipotent, and rich 
oblations are made to it, and priests are deputed for its 
service. 

The Dahomans haye an annual festival in honor of 
the serpent. Though the Ashantees are the most cult¬ 
ured and polished Ethiopians of Western Africa, yet 
they are lavish in their expenditure of human blood at 
their festivals and funerals. 

The savages of the western hemisphere were not 
less superstitious and less brutal in their sacrificial cer¬ 
emonies than the . savages of the eastern hemisphere. 
We will pass over the idolatries of the North American 
aborigines and will dwell for a moment on the religious 
abominations of Aztec civilization. In the days of 
Cortes, the temples of Mexico were adorned with the 
figures of serpents, tigers, and other poisonous and 
carnivorous animals. They believed in human sacri¬ 
fice, and immolated their captives and prisoners on the 
altars during the great national festivities. At the ded¬ 
ication of their temples there were usually twenty 
thousand human victims sacrificed, but on one grand 
occasion (the dedication of the temple of Huitzilo- 
poehtli) they made an offering of no less than sixty 
thousand. 

One of the most important feasts was that in 
which Tezcatlipoca was honored. This god was called 
the soul of the universe, and is presumed to have been 


86 


The Two Kingdoms. 


the creator of the vvprld. He was represented as a 
youth of surpassing beauty and perfect manhood. One 
year before his anniversary arrived, the most hand¬ 
some captive was selected for the sacrifice. This cap¬ 
tive was adorned in regal gowns, served by royal 
pages, regaled with every pleasure that the empire 
could afford. When he passed along the street and 
stopped to render a few melodies on his lute, the crowd 
knelt and adored him. On the fatal day he was led 
forth to the temple arrayed in costly garments, and 
these he discarded one by one, as the procession moved 
on, until they arrived at the teocalli, when his breast 
was opened by a knife in the handa of the officiating 
priest; his palpitating heart was torn from his bosom 
and cast, all bleeding, upon the altar stone. 

Prescott says that “Such was the form of sacrifice 
usually practiced by the Aztecs. It was the same that 
often met the indignant eyes of the Europeans in their 
progress through the country, and from the dreadful 
doom of which they themselves were not exempted. 
There were, indeed, some occasions when preliminary 
tortures of the most exquisite kind—with which it is 
unnecessary to shock the reader—were inflicted, but 
they always terminated with the bloody ceremony 
above described. Women, as well as the other sex, 
were sometimes reserved for sacrifice. On some occa¬ 
sions, particularly in seasons of drought, at the festival 
of the insatiable Tlaloc, the god of rain, children, for 
the most part infants, were offered up. As they were 
borne along in open litters, dressed in their festal robes, 
and decked with the fresh blossoms of spring, they 
moved the hardest hearts to pity, though their cries 
were drowned in the wild chant of the priests, who read 
in their tears a favorable augury for their petition.” 
(Conquest of Mexico, vol. i, pp. 95-6.) This was 


The Two Kingdoms. 


87 


Mexico during the Middle Age. The condition of 
Asia, Africa and Polynesia during that period was 
more deplorable than at the present time. 

Hence the first characteristic of the Millennium, 
the universal dominion of Christian thought and influ¬ 
ence, was absent from the earth during that period 
which some over-zealous writers have designated as 
the age of glory foretold by the prophets of Israel, and 
seen in the visions of the Evangelist. Christianity has 
been preached from the rising to the setting sun, 
and its empire is bounded only by the great oceans that 
foam and surge against the rocks and reefs of every 
Continent and island on the globe. In that sense the 
reign of Christ is universal. But that is not the sense 
in which we speak. A few disciples among every 
people in every quarter of the globe does not constitute 
a universal kingdom. When we say that an empire is 
universal, we mean that it sways the hearts and wills 
of all nations and all races. 

In this sense, Christianity is not, and never was, 
universal. There are more Christians to-day than dur¬ 
ing any other period in the history of the last nineteen 
hundred years; and yet not more than one-fourth, or 
at the most one-third, of the inhabitants of the earth 
bend their knee in reverence to the Name of Jesus. 
There are now five hundred millions of Buddhists, 
more than one-third of the human race; one hundred 
and sixty millions of Hindus; one hundred and fifty- 
five millions of Mohammedans ; eighty millions of Con- 
fucians; fourteen millions of Shintoists; seven millions 
of Jews; about one hundred and twenty-five millions 
of nondescripts, leaving a residue of three hundred and 
fifty millions of Christians, and these are divided into 
several hundred denominations. Yet we are told by 
many writers that Christianity has conquered the 
globe. 


88 


The Two Kingdoms. 


The Gospel took possession of the hearts of men 
in the first centuries, because its lessons responded to 
the wants of the age and the aspirations of the people 
to whom it was preached. Greek and Roman civiliza¬ 
tion has reached the pinnacle of glory at the birth of 
Christ, and the culture of that age loathed the abomi¬ 
nations and puerilities of paganism. It was demeaning 
to the intellectual attainments of the illustrious men 
who framed the character of the period to bow in ado¬ 
ration before the speechless forms of sculptured mar¬ 
ble. The philosophers, statesmen, orators, poets and 
painters, men of thought and learning, felt that poly¬ 
theism was nothing more than the fiction and growth 
of an ignorant age; they felt that there was beyond the 
deep blue immensity an omnipotent and immutable 
and eternal divinity, whose voice had peopled the 
azure fields with starry worlds and filled the universe 
with floods of golden light. Christ came, and the 
beauty of his doctrine answered the longings of their 
souls, and the splendor of his miracles convinced them 
that he was an agent from the skies, sent to heal the 
wounds of humanity. 

If we study the history of the Church, we find that 
she has been most successful with the Caucasian race, 
because that race stands the highest in the scale of 
civilization. Christianity is universal in its conquest of 
the Caucasian race, but it has so far accomplished very 
little toward the conversion of other races. The em¬ 
pire of Christ is merely in its infancy. The Cross must 
be erected in every land; the music of the Gospel must 
echo on every shore ; and all the tribes of the globe 
must flock to the holy city before we can say that the 
prophecies have been fulfilled in the dawn of the Mil¬ 
lennium. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


89 


CHAPTER IV. 

MOHAMMEDANISM. HERESIES. VICES OF THE MIDDEE 
AGE. WARS. TRUCE OF GOD. 

I N the last chapter I dwelt at some length on the 
abominations of paganism so prevalent during the 
Middle Age, and whose baleful shadows reach 
down even to our own times. There is one great de¬ 
nomination which occupies a place between the doc¬ 
trine of Christianity and the idolatries of the heathen 
nations, and which can not be called either pagan or 
Christian. I refer to the disciples of the prophet, the 
author of the Koran. As it was during the Middle 
Age that the temple of Mecca was established and the 
power of Islamism reached its zenith, I can not pass 
over this question when advancing reasons against the 
opinion of those who maintain that the history of the 
Millennium closed with the fall of Constantinople be¬ 
neath the tramp of the Arabian war steeds. 

The birth of this religion dates from the year 622, 
when the prophet was driven from his native city and 
compelled to seek refuge in Medina, where he was 
receive with great honors. Mahomet traced his 
ancestry back through history to Ishmael, and his 
doctrines formed a combination of Judaism and Chris¬ 
tianity, with some original fancies peculiar to an 
erratic mind. 

Starting from the bleak desert of Arabia, the tide 
of Moslem conquest rolled northward over the plains 


9 ° 


The Two Kingdoms. 


of Syria and Persia, and soon the Crescent floated 
above the battlements of Bostra, Palmyra and Damas¬ 
cus. Having met the Christians on a stream near the 
city of Yarmouth, one of the most bloody engage¬ 
ments in history terminated with the massacre of a 
hundred thousand Greeks, the annihilation of their 
dominion in those provinces, and the extension of the 
Saracen power into new fields. This victory was fol¬ 
lowed by the invasion of Palestine, and in a few months 
the swarthy sons of the desert planted the colors of 
Arabia on the walls of Zion, the City of David, the city 
sacred to the memory of Jew and Christian, the city 
that linked together the two covenants of God with 
man, the city where the synagogue perished and the 
Church was born, the city of sacrifice and priesthood, 
altar and ceremonial, the city over which Christ wept 
in his sorrows and bled in his agonies, and to which 
his disciples bend their footsteps after nineteen centu¬ 
ries to witness the scene of his sufferings' and pour out 
their tears upon every stone consecrated by the shadow 
of his passing. 

Aleppo, Antioch, Tyre and Caesarea fell at the 
same time under the domination of the Mussulman, 
and thus within six years all Syria, with a history of 
splendor and glory that has never been surpassed; 
Phoenicia, with the commercial and maritime achieve¬ 
ments that have immortalized her in the literature of 
every nation; and Israel, with the record of her kings 
and rulers, and the sacred memory of her priests and 
prophets, sank beneath the shining blade of Moslem 
chiefs. 

It is needless to state that these provinces, to¬ 
gether with Mesopotamia, having been conquered by 
the Saracen legions, the Crescent supplanted the Cross 
in the cradle of Christianity. The Arab was supreme 


The Two Kingdoms. 


9 1 

over all western Asia. The culture and refinement of 
Greek literature and philosophy were blasted by the 
withering simoon of the desert in its sweep over the 
cities where Ionic bards once charmed, with their lutes, 
the gods on Mount Olympus. 

Moving westward over the hills of Judea and the 
desert of the south, crossing the isthmus of Suez and 
the valley of the Nile, the dusky warriors next laid 
siege to Alexandria, the most famous seat of learning 
in Egypt, and in a few months, with the loss of twenty- 
three thousand soldiers, the emblem of the prophet 
waved above the ramparts of the city and the palace of 
the king. Like the sultry winds from the arid plains 
lying along the eastern coast of the Red Sea, the pha¬ 
lanxes of Islam surged onward from Egypt over the 
Libyan desert, across the confines of Fezzan, beyond 
the Black Mountains of Tripoli, conquering Tunis and 
Algeria and Morocco, until the flag of the Saracen 
waved over all western'Africa and was planted on the 
rocks of Ceuta. 

But the tide of Moslem triumph did not halt with 
the conquest of Almagreb. Beyond the narrow strait 
dividing the Pillars of Hercules lav outstretched the 
beautiful plains of Iberia, the fertile valleys of Anda¬ 
lusia and the giddy heights of Granada. This fair 
region was warmed with the beams of sunny skies, 
refreshed with crystal streams, protected from the gales 
of the north by the lofty mountains that nature had 
established as impenetrable barriers on her frontier, 
shielding her wealth from the rapacity of Frank and 
Lombard. The sturdy sons of the camp looked upon 
her fertile hills and lovely vales, her lordly rivers and 
majestic mountains, and they determined that the Goth 
should perish in the wake of the Moor, that the symbol 
of Christ should recede before the symbol of the 


9 2 


The Two Kingdoms. 


prophet, that the dome of Mahomedan mosques 
should overshadow the ruins of Christian temples, that 
the chime of Cathedral bells should be replaced by the- 
cry of the Muezzin. 

Count Julian was then in command of the Spanish 
army located in Tingitania. The tidings of his daugh¬ 
ter’s betrayal by Don Roderick, King of the Goths, 
was conveyed to him while fighting the battles of his 
country against the Mussulmanic legions, and to 
avenge the sorrows of Florinda, and wash out with 
streams of blood the stigma that had been placed on 
his name by the perfidy of his sovereign, he sought 
the assistance of the Moors. He entered into secret 
negotiations with Aber ben Nosier, the Arab general, 
for the subjugation and humiliation of his native land. 

The plan was executed. The. Moslem hosts 
crossed the strait, overthrew the Gothic legions, and 
the Crescent was established in Andalusia and the 
Alhambra rose majestic on the summit of Granada. 
The throne of Islam was established at Damascus, the 
oldest city in the world, and the voice of the Caliph 
was recognized on the three Continents, and his em¬ 
pire comprised an unbroken belt of country* that 
extended from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the 
Bay of Bengal in the east. 

We are all familiar with the tenets of Mahome- 
danism, and we know that the influence of that religion 
was neither advantageous to civilization nor beneficial 
to morality. 

The conquest of Islamism was the conquest of the 
sword, and the dominion of the Ottoman is the domin¬ 
ion of despotism. Mahomedanism allowed Christians 
and Jews to escape its degrading bondage by paying 
an annual tribute to the empire of Allah; but the na¬ 
tions of other creeds were compelled to accept the 


The Two Kingdoms. 


93 

Koran or to appeal to the sword on the gory field of 
battle. 

The dusky warriors were encouraged in their 
valiant struggles against unbelievers with the promise 
of the conquered lands in case of success, or, in the 
event of death, they thought that their souls would be 
transported to a paradise of carnal joys where they 
would revel forever with voluptuous sylphs and black- 
eyed houris. 

The fierce janizaries, nursed on the blood of 
nations, tutored in the school of savagery, were a 
standing menace to the world, and the dove of peace 
and the eagle of light, hearing the echoes of their 
tramp, the hoof of their battle steeds, the clash of their 
swords and the clangor of their trumpets, sought 
refuge beyond oceans and continents. 

In the early days of Christianity the Church of 
Africa and the East was adorned with the light of 
genius and glorified with the halo of sanctity. The 
See of Alexandria, founded by St. Mark the Evange¬ 
list, and presided over successively by Demetrius, 
Heraclius and Dionysius, was the glory of Egypt; and 
the famous school of that historic city, fostered by the 
genius of Clement, Origen and a host of other brilliant 
minds, sent forth a flood of light that dazzled the re¬ 
motest parts of the vast Roman empire. Carthage, 
made illustrious by the virtues of Agrippinus and the 
eloquence of Cyprian, became the Metropolitan See of 
Africa, and thence irradiated a light that fell upon the 
myths of pagan superstition like the golden beams of 
the infant moon upon the specters that lurk in the 
shadows of night. 

Evangelists went forth from these schools of 
Christian thought into Numidia, Mauritania, Libya, 
Pentopolis and Lower Egypt. Caesarea and Neo 


94 


The Two Kingdom? 


Caesarea, Aelia Capitolina, Jerusalem and Antioch 
were ruled by zealous bishops, and these sees flourished 
amidst the temples of paganism and the altars of Israel. 

The ancient confederation of Syria became a part 
of the Christian empire in the East, and Seleucia, 
Beraea, Apamea, Hierapolis, Cyrus and Samosata had 
their Episcopal thrones and their Cathedral towers; 
while Tyre and Sidon, Byblos and Berytus, Tropolis 
and Ptolemais were flourishing churches of Phoenicia? 

What student of history is not familiar with the 
ancient glory of Ephesus and Smyrna, the most famous 
Christian communities of Asia Minor? ,Who is ignor¬ 
ant of the former splendor of Laodicea and Colossae? 

But alas! where are>those churches now? Where 
are those Christian cities and those Christian lands? 
Where are Phrygia and Pamphilia and Cappadocia and 
Bithvnia? Where is the ancient glory of Nicomedia? 
W ,T here are the temples of Pontus and Mesopotamia? 
Where are the spires and domes that crowned the 
churches of Adessa and Nisibis, Prusa and Hellen- 
apolis? They have withered, they have vanished, they 
have fallen, they have perished. 

The Mongolian wave of desolation, rolling down 
from the steppes of Embin and Ishim, passing the Ural 
Sea, scaling the rocky heights of Elburz, crossing the 
Great Salt Desert of Persia, accepted the creed of the 
prophet, united with the wandering Arab in subjugat¬ 
ing and oppressing the tribes of the Orient; and soon 
every Christian temple, from the mouth of the Danube 
to the valley of the Ganges, floated the banner of the 
Turk. 

The Mosque of Omar rests upon the ruins of the 
ancient temple of Solomon, and the City of Zion pays 
tribute to the flag of the Ottoman. For twelve hun¬ 
dred years the power of the Crescent has lain like an 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


95 


incubus upon the civilization of the Old World, crush¬ 
ing out the spirit of liberty, enthralling the capacity of 
the human intellect, dwarfing the growth of morality, 
impeding the development of science and culture, and 
degrading the character of womanhood, the founda* 
tion of every social virtue. 

Where are the great men that once graced the 
court of Eastern Kings? Where are the savants 
whose wisdom and learning and eloquence have been 
remembered by the lovers of philosophy, literature and 
art throughout all ages? Where are Basil and Chrysos¬ 
tom, Ignatius and Polycarp, Augustine and Tertullian, 
Cyril and Athanasius? Their voices echo down the 
stream of time, and charm us with the sweet memories 
of long ago, when the black-robed angel of charity 
walked among the columns of the dimly lighted clois¬ 
ter or went forth to the battlefield to stanch the 
wounds of the warrior, soothe the brow of the sick 
and the dying, to gladden the hearts of the afflicted 
and to dissipate the clouds that hung over the lives of 
the sorrowful. 

The harem has been established within the hal¬ 
lowed precincts of ancient convent walls, and the 
virgin flow r ers of the Ottoman empire are withered by 
the blighting breath of unbridled lust. 

The Christianity of the Middle Age was distracted 
by many internal dissensions, and by the formation of 
diverse creeds pretending to draw their origin from 
the teachings of Our Lord and his apostles. The 
Arian, Nestorian, Eutvchian, Pelagian and the Mono- 
physitical heresies, begotten in the womb of Greek 
imagination, and fostered in the lap of the Byzantine 
empire, disturbed the tranquillity of the Church 
throughout the Middle Age, and destroyed the unity 
of Christian faith. The chasm, thus early begun be- 


9 6 


The Two Kingdoms. 


tween the East and the West, was widened as time 
rolled on, and every century added force to the ele¬ 
ments that were destined ultimately to dismember the 
empire of Christendom. 

Leo the Isaurian, an ignorant soldier, who, 
ascending from the humblest walks of life by the aid 
of the army, was seated on the throne of Constanti¬ 
nople in the year 717. Conceiving an aversion for 
pictorial representations in churches, a practice which 
had been cultivated by the refined taste of the Greek 
mind, reveling in the pleasure of the fine arts, he issued 
an edict for the destruction of all images throughout 
the empire of the West. The ukase of no Czar was 
ever more arbitrary and more revolting to the sensi¬ 
bilities of the early Christians than this stupid and 
cruel mandate. 

Christianity never dreamed of giving adoration to 
these memorials of its Founder, and the holy men and 
women whose lives were associated with its 'early tri¬ 
umphs and infant glory. We employ the genius of art 
to preserve the memory of our illustrious dead. The 
brush of the painter reproduces on canvas the features 
of the intrepid warrior, who has fought the battles of 
his country and covered her flag with the glory of 
victory. The heroes of all ages live in marble, formed 
bv the chisel of the sculptor. 

We admire the great artists of mediaeval times, 
because they have clothed their conceptions with form 
and life and beauty that vied with Nature’s handiwork. 
We stand entranced before the master strokes of 
Raphael and Angelo, Perugino and Correggio. The 
genius of Titian shines forth in the Entombment of 
Christ, the Holy Family and Christ Crowned with 
Thorns. The works of Leonardo da Vinci, Giulio 
Romano, Andrea del Santo, Paul Veronese and Tinto- 


The Two Kingdoms. 


97 


retto, examples of which are found in the galleries of 
the Louvre, would well recompense a visit to Paris. 
Need I speak of the names of Guercino, Beato Angel¬ 
ico da Fiesole, Francesco Francia, Carlo Crivelli, 
Bonifazio and Murillo, to remind you what art has 
done for civilization? Need I take you to the Vatican 
Gallery and show you the paintings of Tiziano, Ribera, 
Pinturicchio, Giovanni Spagna and Sassoferrato ? 
Need I go with you to the Borghese Palace to behold 
Cybele spreading her gifts over Egypt, the Sacrifice to 
Silenus, Solomon's Judgment, Venus leaving her bath 
and Mercury with a lyre? Let us enter the picture 
gallery on the next floor, and we are entranced with 
the vivid representations of the gods of Olympus, and 
the Amazon with the warriors crouching at her feet, 
the Virgin and the Child, and the Descent from the 
Cross, the Cumaean Sibyl, and iEneas flying from 
Troy. 

Painting familiarizes us with the history of the 
distant ages. It fills the valley of the Nile with 
galleries and palaces, ' temples and shrines. It 
adorns the desert wastes of Chaldea with landscapes 
and gardens, pinnacles and towers. It crowns the 
summit of Libanus with hamlets and cottages, vine¬ 
yards and olive groves. It creates a new Israel, with 
its lofty mountains covered with the cedar and the 
cactus and the sycamore, and its fertile plains, rich 
with the golden olive trees and broad expanse of grass 
and grazing land, fragrant with the odor of wild thyme 
and camomile, all blossoming as the rose and the 
flower, alive with the song of bird and the hum of bee 
and the voice of the busy rustic, for one can conceive 
the realities of the scene from the representations. It 
replaces the crumbling stones of Ramleh and the min¬ 
arets of Ludd, all sparkling in the golden sunbeams of 


9 8 


The Two Kingdoms. 


the Orient. It rebuilds the tottering walls of Jaffa and 
Beyrout, Damascus and Aleppo. 

The canvas portrays the ancient splendor of Baby¬ 
lon and Nineveh, Jerusalem and Caesarea. By gazing 
on the lines drawn by the skillful hand of the artist, we 
can roam among the solitary ruins of Tyre and Sidon, 
wander along the seashore and watch the surging tide, 
or revel upon the wealth and beauty of Sharon, and 
behold the far-off hill country of Judea and the land of 
the Philistines, where so many battles were fought in 
olden times by the heroes of God’s chosen race. 

The brush has resuscitated the memory of Jericho, 
and viewing the fallen columns and broken walls, 
we see again the hosts of Israel wandering around 
the doomed city, and we hear the magic sounds 
of the trumpet that demolished its ramparts and 
bulwarks, and created terror in the hearts of its 
defenders. The brush has repeopled the silen4 
vales with toiling husbandmen, covered rural wastes 
with opulent cities, and filled desert lands with 
life and joy: it has brought our fancies back over the 
gulf of time when these desolate plains were thronged 
with human beings, and embellished with the art and 
genius of a lost civilization; when the ships of Tarshish 
conveyed the wealth of Thule, Serica and the Baltic to 
the shores of the Levant; when Syria was a vast em¬ 
pire, and a hundred flourishing cities were nurtured in 
her bosom ; when the Persians held dominion from .the 
border of Cashmere to the rocks of Taurus. 

Painting connects us with the works of all nations 
and the civilization of every age. As the distant castle, 
resting upon a lofty crag overhanging the valley and 
laving its foot in the limpid rill that winds along its 
base, or the wild frothing torrent that rushes madly 
and violently through the mountain gorge, leaping 


The Two Kingdoms. 


99 


from height to height and from rock to rock, seething, 
surging, foaming, rolling in its frantic march; as the 
beauty of that castle, standing there amid the sublime 
scenery created by the touch of nature’s hand, en¬ 
hanced and magnified at one time by the shadow of 
frowning skies and fleecy clouds, and again bathed 
and flooded in the golden beams of the setting sun, is 
reflected and reproduced in the small compass of the 
eye, so the glory of all ages can be circumscribed and 
focused by the brush of the artist. 

The religious memorials of the Middle Age per¬ 
petuated the history of Christ and prolonged the lives 
of illustrious men. They told the story of the fall of 
man in the garden of Eden, and the promise of a 
Redeemer from the house of David and the root of 
Jesse. They portrayed the call of Abraham and the 
sacrifice of Melchisedec, the conquests of heroes and 
the visions of prophets. They portrayed the birth of 
the Savior and the announcement to the shepherds, the 
adoration of the Magi and the flight into Egypt. They 
represented the last supper and the betrayal of Judas, 
the sorrows of Gethsemane and the appearance of 
Christ before the high priest of Judea. They repre¬ 
sented the tribunal of Pilate and the court of Herod, 
the scourging at the pillar and the crowning with 
thorns. 

They pointed to the malice of the Scribes and the 
hatred of the Pharisees, the cruelties of the soldiers 
and the jeers of the rabble, the journey from Jerusalem 
to Calvary, amid scenes that filled the court of heaven 
with sighs and tears, and tortured the heart of demons 
with .anguish and despair that humanity was released 
from the bondage of hell. They pointed to the nails 
and the cross, the sweat of agony and the shadow of 
death ; and they renewed the memory of words which 


IOO 


The Two Kingdoms. 


escaped from the lips of a loving God, and which have 
echoed through the world, encouraging the just with 
heavenly hopes, strengthening the souls of the forlorn 
and desolate, mitigating the sorrows of the penitent, 
alleviating the agonies of the dying, crushing the 
mighty with the fear of judgment and piercing the 
heart of the wicked with the sword of doom. 

These paintings fhat adorned the walls of vast 
cathedrals, that hung above the altar and enriched the 
sides of the sanctuary, carried the fancy of the wor¬ 
shiper to the glory of Olivet, where Christ, clad in 
the raiment of eternal beauty and immortal humanity, 
blessed his apostles and sent them on their mission to 
the Jew and Gentile; to the appalling spectacle of Pen- 
.tecost, when the Holy Ghost, flying with the wings of 
the tempest, breathed upon the eleven and filled their 
souls with the seven gifts of the divine spirit, typical 
of the seven lamps that incessantly shine before the 
throne of God, creating a new body, the mystical body 
of the Incarnate Word, that was destined to outlive 
every nation, absorb every people, and to illuminate 
every age with the light of faith. 

These paintings spoke of ancient times, when 
great men glorified the Church by their learning and 
virtue, when evangelists, panoplied with the armor of 
truth and the shield of justice, went forth to give battle 
to paganism, ignorance and ferocity. They spoke of 
Paul, who addressed the intellect of Greece from the 
hilLof Mars, and proclaimed the lessons of the Gospels 
from the altars of pagan Gods. They spoke of Peter, 
who preached the faith in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia 
and Bithynia, and ceased not his labors until he had 
planted the Cross on the shores of the Tiber and an¬ 
nounced his mission to the priests who guarded the 
sanctuaries of heathen Rome. They spoke of Mat- 


The Two Kingdoms. 


ioi 


thew, who conveyed the message of peace and love to 
the benighted sons of India, and the sable race of Ethi¬ 
opia. They spoke of Philip, who began his labors with 
the conversion of the eunuch, and continued his glori¬ 
ous career until he had proclaimed the divinity of 
Christ to the people of Phrygia and raised the symbol 
of man’s redemption on the towers and temples of 
Hieropolis. 

They spoke of Thomas, who called the Parthians 
to the altar of God, extinguished the sacrificial fires of 
Media, and taught the Magians of Persia that the 
King of the Universe had illuminated and adorned 
the canopy of heaven with that host of radiant stars, 
which Zoroaster had adored as sparks of the divine 
essence. They spoke of Andrew, who had traversed 
the plains of Russia; and journeyed along the plains of 
the Black Sea and the shores of the Bosphorus, an¬ 
nouncing salvation to the Scythians and other kin¬ 
dred tribes. They spoke of Bartholomew, who crossed 
the desert of Akhaf on his mission of grace to the 
country washed by the waves of the Red Sea and the 
Gulf of Aden. They spoke of Thaddeus, who baptized 
Abgar, King of Edessa, and converted many of his 
subjects. They spoke of Simon, who promulgated the 
Gospel in Egypt, Libya and other lands of Northern 
Africa. They spoke of Matthias, who penetrated the 
present country of Abyssinia as far as the confines of 
the Hawash and the Blue Nile. 

In studying these works of art, the first Christians 
were reminded of the early history of the Church. 
There they beheld the triumphs of Christianity in the 
baptism of Clovis and the conversion of the Franks. 
There they beheld the conquest of faith over the gods 
of pagan Rome. There they beheld the persecution of 
the Church under the cruel fiat of Nero, and the power 


102 


The Two Kingdoms. 


of grace in supporting the martyrs in their agonies. 
There, they beheld the constancy and fortitude and 
magnanimity of the Theban Legion, who were deci¬ 
mated by the order of Maximinian. There, they be¬ 
held the triumphs of Augustine in England, the labors 
of Patrick in Ireland, the achievements of Palladius in 
Scotland, the success of Ansgarius among the North¬ 
men, who assembled beneath the glittering stars to 
hear the angel from the South proclaiming strange, 
but sweet and heavenly doctrines. There they beheld 
Boniface and his companions traversing the wild, un¬ 
broken forests of Germany, hunting the lost tribes of 
the human race, and calling them back from the path 
of err-or with the promise of life eternal. There, they 
saw the efforts of Constantine to master the Slavonian 
tongue, that he might succeed in raising the Christian 
flag above the citadel of idolatry in Poland, and plant 
the Cross on the shores of the Vistula and crown the 
Carpathian peaks and slopes with the temples of Christ. 

It was against the genius of art that the movement 
of Iconoclasm was directed, and the breach between 
Rome and Byzantium opened by Leo was completed 
by Photius in the consummation of the Greek schism. 
But the division of Christendom steadily progressed 
during the following centuries. Sects silently sprung 
up in different quarters of Europe, and disseminated 
their doctrines among the masses of the people, till the 
time came for an open revolt against the religion of 
the State. 

In Brabant Tanchelm assumed the role of the 
Messiah, had temples erected in his name, proclaimed 
that he was the Divinity, donned the character of a 
King, established a throne surrounded by a body¬ 
guard of three thousand men, celebrated his nuptials 
with the Virgin with great eclat, repudiated the sac- 


Thk Two Kingdoms. 103 

raments of the Church, and waged war against the 
hierarchy. 

Eon d’Etoil announced that he was the Son of 
God, the long-expected Redeemer. He went through 
Brittany and Gascony in royal equipage, calling upon 
the multitude to adore him as the promised Messiah 
and the Savior of mankind. After his death, his dis¬ 
ciples claimed that he would come again amidst the 
glory of heavenly hosts to pass sentence upon the liv¬ 
ing and the dead on the day of judgment. 

Peter de Bruis, following in the wake of his pre¬ 
decessor, though not so arrogant as to claim the 
attributes of the Deity, created disturbances wherever 
he established his creed, even going so far in his oppo¬ 
sition to the ancient faith, as to order the demolition 
of churches and the destruction of pictures and stat¬ 
uary. 

Henry Lausanne emphasized many of the tenets 
and practices of Peter de Bruis, his precursor in the 
same region. 

The Passagians, Waldenses, Cathari, Amalricians, 
Brethren and Sisters of the free spirit, the Apostolic 
Brethern, TurlupinS, Albigenses and several other 
denominations, disturbed the tranquillity of the 
Church in the thirteenth century. 

I am not writing a defense of any particular form 
of Christianity, and hence I will not enter into a dis¬ 
cussion of the merits of these various sects, or the 
Mother Church whence they sprung. My object, 
in their enumeration, is to show that Christianity was 
not a united organization in those days, and I think 
that this disunion was contrary to the teachings of the 
Bible. For Christ solemnly asseverates the necessity 
of ecclesiastical union. “Every kingdom divided 
against itself shall not stand.” (Matt. 12-25.) Again 


104 


The Two Kingdoms. 


he says: “There shall be one fold and one shepherd/’ 
(John 10-16.) St. Paul, encouraging the spirit of 
unity, informs the Corinthians that God “is not the 
God of dissension, but of peace.” 

In writing to the Ephesians, the Apostle of the 
Gentiles cautions them to be “careful to keep the unity 
of the Spirit in the bond of peace. One body and one 
spirit, as you are called in one hope of your calling. 
One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father 
of us all.” (Fourth chapter.) 

Holding the sacred volume in my hand, and be¬ 
lieving in the Divine inspirations of its teachings, I 
deplore the disunion of Christianity in the Middle 
Age, and I regard the dissensions of those times as 
a strong indication that Christ had not yet come to 
reign upon earth in the glory of the Millennium. 

I also admit that there were many vices prevalent 
among both clergy and laity, and many abuses were 
permitted bv the Church, and these pretexts, favorable 
to the cause of innovations, were utilized with marvel- 
, ous advantage by the Reformers of the Middle Age. 
However, I might justly remark that the dark pages 
of mediaeval history can be attributed in a large meas¬ 
ure to the union of ecclesiastical and secular power. 

The Church and State should operate harmoni¬ 
ously, as both have been instituted for the amelioration 
of society, the promotion of human happiness. The 
government, having been formed for the preservation 
of order, must take cognizance of all external acts 
that pertain to encroachments upon the domain of 
individual libertv and the destruction of life or prop¬ 
erty. Ecclesiasticism aims at the spiritual regenera¬ 
tion and perfection of humanity, and therefore endeav¬ 
ors to purify the heart, soul and conscience. Now 
as the eternal law of nature and the positive law of 


The Two Kingdoms. 




io 5 


God, make provisions for our immortal interests by 
the inculcation of virtue and the denunciation of vice, 
it is readily seen that the teachings of Christianity, 
which contain the expressions of the divine will, sup¬ 
port the enactments of secular legislation; for every 
violation of legal statutes constitutes a crime against 
the Bible. It is to the advantage of society that the 
parliaments and senates of nations be governed by 
Christian principles and that judges and rulers be 
actuated by the spirit of the Gospel. 

Further than this, there should be no union of 
Church and State. In every government there must 
be imperfections; for governments are the creations of 
men; and they are often influenced and controlled by 
men not only devoid of religious sentiment, but even 
lacking the character of integrity. In a state-church 
the injustice and corruption of the political organiza¬ 
tion are frequently interwoven with the ecclesiastical 
administration, and the hierarchy becomes subservient 
to the intrigues of secular officials. This was the con¬ 
dition of Europe during mediaeval times, and this state 
of affairs engendered that long train of evils resulting 
in the disedification of the faithful and the creation of 
religious revolutions. 

Nicholas de Clemangis, in his treatise on the. cor¬ 
rupt condition of the Church in the early part of the 
fifteenth century, remarks: “As for the monks, what 
shall we say in condemnation of those who, according 
to their vows, ought t© be the most perfect of all the 
sons of the Church, since they are removed from anx¬ 
iety about the things of the world, and are thus able to 
devote themselves to the contemplation of heavenly 
things, but who are plainly the reverse of all this ? For 
they are, in fact, the most covetous and the most ava¬ 
ricious of all, and are mere slaves of the world, instead 
of fleeing from it.” 


io 6 


The Two Kingdoms. 


And speaking of the Mendicant Friars who posed 
as the saints and reformers of the age, the author says: 
"Just as the Synagogue had its Pharisees, against 
whom Christ spoke most strongly in the Gospel, so are 
these new apostles to be regarded as the Pharisees of 
the Church to whom is applicable all that Christ said 
of the Pharisees, or even much more. For they are 
like ravening wolves in sheep’s clothing, who have the 
external appearance of holiness, but inwardly are de¬ 
filed with all lusts.” (Clark’s Life of Savonarola, p. 
23.) This was the condition of religious life in Italy 
in the early part of the fifteenth century, the culminat¬ 
ing point in a state of moral degeneracy which ex¬ 
tended back through several hundred years. 

For many centuries ecclesiastical appointments 
were subject to the caprice of the German Emperors, 
and the favorite of the crown, or the willing tool of 
some nobleman, was always the successful competitor 
for a rich benefice. Although the Church reserved the 
right of electing a successor to the Papal throne, or of 
designating a bishop to fill a vacant see, yet the dis¬ 
gruntled aspirant often appealed to the sovereign or to 
the passion of the rabble. 

‘The Vatican and the Lateran,” says Gibbon in 
his history of those eventful times, “were stained with 
blood; and the most powerful senators, the Marquises 
of Tuscany and the Counts of Tusculum, held the apos¬ 
tolic see in a long and disgraceful servitude. The 
Roman pontiffs of the ninth and tenth centuries were 
insulted, imprisoned and murdered by their tyrants, 
and such was their indigence after t!|e loss and usurpa¬ 
tion of the ecclesiastical patrimonies, that they could 
neither support the state of a prince nor exercise the 
charity of a priest.” (Fall and Decline of the Roman 
Empire, Vol. 5, pp. 59-60.) 


The: Two Kingdoms. 107 

To correct these shameful abuses it was necessary 
that a great spirit be honored with the tiara and take 
the reins of the Church in his hands, and the needed 
reformer came upon the scene in the person of Greg¬ 
ory VII. It was he that curbed the power of nobles 
and emperors and purified the Church from the degra¬ 
dation of political servitude and corruption. Gregory 
may have been a tyrant, but, as a great writer nas 
justly said, the iniquities of the age required a tyrant, 
a man of strong will and indomitable courage. Hilde¬ 
brand recognized the danger and boldly confronted 
the enemy. 

The efforts of Gregory were seconded by other 
able and energetic men, but the evils were so deeply 
rooted that it required the zeal of ages to entirely 
eradicate them, and the Church was not purified of 
these gross vices till the great religious revolution of 
the sixteenth century created a rivalry among Chris¬ 
tian denominations. 

As virtue has ever been regarded as the fruit of 
the Gospel, the faithful naturally judged the merits of 
a creed by its works rather than by its dogmas, and, 
hence, the professors and disciples of the Church en¬ 
deavored to manifest the product of salutary teachings 
in their daily lives, and this emulation has engendered 
the purer morals of later centuries. 

I can not pass over another vice of the Middle 
Age, the spirit of intolerance. Perhaps this should not 
be called a vice, for it was the result of the ignorance 
and the superstition of the times, instead of any pro¬ 
nounced hatred of religious liberty. A person educated 
in the school of Christian thought, and surrounded by 
an atmosphere intensely religious, will accept no apol¬ 
ogy for infidelity; for in his position he can not con¬ 
ceive how others can disregard the truths of revelation, 


o8 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


and he falsely imagines that disbelief in the Bible is 
the consequence of moral perversion. Mohammedans 
loathe the name of Christian, because he does not 
accept the divine character of the Moslem creed, and 
they sincerely believe that none but the disciples of 
the Prophet will ever see the face of Allah. The 
Buddhists and Hindoos likewise regard the followers 
of other cults with perfect aversion, holding that only 
willful obduracy and a state of moral incorrigibility 
can obfuscate the manifest light of their sacred books. 

The Christians of the Middle Age, brought up in 
the national faith and unacquainted with the people of 
other creeds, thought that there was no salvation for 
those outside the pale of the Church; and, feeling con¬ 
vinced that the heretic was the agent of Satan, believed 
that they were serving God by waging war on his 
enemy, and washing out their sins in the blood of the 
faithless. 

I can not refrain from giving a few extracts from 
the enactments of the ecclesiastical Inquisition. The 
first chapters enjoin on every Archbishop and Bishop 
the obligation of appointing for every parish a priest 
and two worthy laymen whose duty it shall be to 
search diligently for heretics, their abettors and de¬ 
fenders, and when found to report them to the ordi¬ 
nary, the lord of the manor, and his officials. The 
fourth chapter directs that one who wittingly harbors 
or conceals a heretic shall be delivered to the secular 
tribunal for punishment, and his property shall be 
confiscated. The fifth chapter ordains that the lord or 
proprietor upon whose estate a heretic has been dis¬ 
covered shall be punished according to the provisions 
of the law, and the house in which the heretic was 
found shall be destroyed, and the land confiscated. 
Chapter seventh ordains that any remissness on the 


The Two Kingdoms. 


109 

part of officials in the prosecution of heretics shall be 
regarded as criminal, and they shall be punished with 
loss of office and confiscation of property. 

The defenders of the Roman Inquisition say that 
the heretics of the thirteenth century were violent 
anarchists, declaring war against the altar and the 
throne, and no person was too sacred to disarm their 
vengeance or soothe their wrath. I must say that, 
while these reasons have great weight, I can not see 
the justice of legislation directed against any class or 
body as a whole without discrimination. While many 
of the reformers of that age might have been guilty of 
the excesses attributed to them, yet there is no doubt 
that some were innocent of those charges, and there¬ 
fore should not have been subject to decrees intended 
for the refractory adversaries of law and order. 

However, let us not condemn Christianity for the 
errors' and sins of its children. The Church consists 
of a human and a divine element, and while the latter 
must be perfect, the former is subject to error and cor¬ 
ruption. Therefore, the crimes of those professing and 
teaching the doctrines of Christianity are the crimes of 
individuals and not the crimes of the Church. We can 
not justly condemn the constitution of our country for 
the errors of the judicial bench; neither is the Revela¬ 
tion made by God to mankind responsible for the 
bigotry of the Middle Age. 

The spirit of intolerance has been manifested 
among all nations, and in every age, and has inspired 
the cruelties of legal persecutions. If we open the 
statute book of England we find there enactments 
against dissenters as cruel as any that were ever passed 
by the Latin countries of Europe against heretics. 

We are familiar with the brutal history of Eliza¬ 
beth in her government of Ireland, and the intolerant 


no 


Thk Two Kingdom? 


decrees that were framed by Parliament for the sup¬ 
pression of the ancient faith. During the reign of 
Cromwell a reward of five pounds was given for the 
head of a priest and ten pounds for a bishop or Jesuit. 
New statutes were passed by the Parliaments of every 
succeeding sovereign. During the reign of William 
of Orange, Catholics were forbidden to hold any im¬ 
portant office, excluded from the House of Commons, 
Catholic education was tabooed and a penalty was im¬ 
posed on every parent who, to avoid the consequences 
of this unjust legislation, sent his children to the 
schools of foreign lands; Archbishops, bishops and 
priests were banished, Papists were disarmed, and their 
spoliation and robbery were legalized. 

Lord Macaulay, in his criticism of Von Ranke’s 
history, writes, in his allusion to the bigotry of the six¬ 
teenth century, that “In the Palatinate a Calvinistic 
prince persecuted the Lutherans. In Saxony a Lu¬ 
theran prince persecuted the Calvinists. Everybody 
who objected to the articles of the Confession of Augs¬ 
burg was banished from Sweden. In Scotland 
Melville was disputing with other Protestants on ques¬ 
tions of ecclesiastical government. In England the 
jails were filled with men who, though zealous for the 
Reformation, did not exactly agree with the Court on 
all points of discipline and doctrine. Some were per¬ 
secuted for denying the tenet of reprobation; some for 
not wearing the surplice. The Irish people might at 
that time have been reclaimed from Popery at the 
expense of half the zeal and activity which Whitgift 
employed in oppressing Puritans.” (Essays, Vol. 2, 
p. 486.) 

However, the Lutheran and Calvinistic denomina¬ 
tions and the Church of England can not be arraigned 
for these atrocious crimes, no more than the Church 


The; Two Kingdoms. 


iii 


of Rome can be criminated for the enormities of the 
Spanish Inquisition. These were the sins of men, and 
not the sins of the Church. These were the legitimate 
product of abnormal development of religious enthu¬ 
siasm, and not the result of Christian thought. Never¬ 
theless, these enormities clearly indicate that the spirit 
of the Gospel had not, in those days, accomplished a 
complete victory over the human mind and the human 
heart, and therefore the reign of Christ upon earth was 
a partial reign, conquering the souls of individuals, 
but not yet moving the mass in the glorious triumph 
of a divine commonwealth. 

The Millennium shall be an age of peace, for the 
prophet says “they shall not hurt nor shall they kill in 
all my holy mountain, for the earth is filled with the 
knowledge of the Cord as the covering waters of the 
sea/’ (Isa., ch. n.) But the Middle Age was an age 
of deadly strife among all nations, even among those 
which had accepted the Cross for the emblem of their 
religious profession. I shall not allude to the conquest 
of the Saracens at the cost of so much human blood. 
I shall not dwell on the victories of the Moors over the 
kingdom of the Goths, and the march of their triumph¬ 
ant legions over the vales and hills of Andalusia. I 
shall not describe the hosts of the desert climbing the 
rocks of the Pyrenees on a mission of usurpation and 
depredation to Gaul, and the subsequent fatalities of 
the battle fought on the plains between Poitiers and 
Tours, when the magnanimous Martel, with his gallant 
regiments, stained the earth with a gory flood and left 
three hundred thousand Moslem warriors to decay 
beneath the rays of the sun and the pale light of the 
moon. I shall not speak of the devastating march of 
Genghis-Khan and Tamerlane, nor shall I refer to the 
Crusaders when Christianity was armed against Islam- 


I I 2 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


ism, and when the blood of Europeans and Asiatics 
crimsoned the Land of Promise; but I shall confine 
my strictures to the carnage of nations resting beneath 
the shadow of the same temple and worshiping their 
God at the same altar. 

Every student of. history is conversant with the 
usurpations of the Normans on the Continent and on 
the isles of the western main. Crossing the channel 
that lay between their home in the north of Gaul and 
the chalk-white cliffs of Britain, they conquered the 
natives and laid the foundation of their empire on the 
ruins of Saxon civilization. But these warlike scions of 
William the Conqueror were not content with their 
limited possession, and they determined that the sword 
of Norman chieftains should be respected beyond the 
seas that laved the shores of England. 

For three hundred years the battle-ax was used 
against the Celt; for three hundred years the Norman 
and the Hibernian met in martial array, one fighting 
for the acquisition of new dominions and the other for 
the blessing of national independence; for three hun¬ 
dred years the tramp of the war-steed echoed among 
the mountain dells of Erin, and the cry of the war-god 
filled her groves with dismal sounds, gloomy fore¬ 
bodings of terrible calamities. 

The wars of Italy alone would fill volumes, and to 
recapitulate the horrors of these intestine struggles 
would shock the sensibilities of a refined age. 

Again, there was constant strife between the Eng¬ 
lish and French. The ancient enmity between these 
rival powers was prolonged by Richard and Philip 
Augustus, and culminated in the battle of Bonvines 
several years after the death of the Lion-hearted King. 
This famous engagement terminated with dreadful 
slaughter, and well might the angel of the Apocalypse, 


The: Two Kingdoms. 113 

looking down from his starry, throne upon the mas¬ 
sacre which insured the supremacy of the French over 
their enemies, have flown across the troubled skies, 
crying, “Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabitants of the 
earth!” 

Hostilities between the Anglo-Saxons and the 
Gallican legions were renewed in the year 1338 by 
Edward the Third and Philip of Valois. The naval 
battle of Sluys, fought two years later, resulted in the 
complete annihilation of the French fleet, consisting of 
one hundred and twenty large vessels, and in the sac¬ 
rifice of twenty-eight thousand sailors. But this 
disaster did not end the carnage. The contending 
nations met again on the field of Crecy, and this en¬ 
gagement cost the French army thirty thousand 
heroes. 

I might justly remark that throughout the Middle 
Age, as well as later on in history, Europe, the land of 
Christian schools and temples, land of prayer and sac¬ 
rifice, was one great battlefield. Nation rose against 
nation, and kingdom against kingdom, indications of 
diabolical supremacy upon earth, instead of the reign 
of Christ over the hearts of men. 

But it would be unjust to say that the Church did 
not try to mitigate the atrocities of war. She estab¬ 
lished the Truce of God, forbidding all violence, and 
especially the cruelties of war, from Wednesday even¬ 
ing of one week to Monday morning of the following 
week. This was a season of peace, established in 
honor of Christ’s passion and resurrection, and by the 
suppression of hostilities during four days out of every 
seven the Church accomplished a great victory over 
the barbarities of the times, and prepared the way for 
the total abolition of the sword and the lance in the 
adjustment of national claims. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


114 


CHAPTER V. 

DISMEMBERMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH WAS 
FATAL TO THE DEVELOPMENT AND EXPANSION OF 
CHRISTIANITY. BIGOTRY. DEFECTS IN THE GOV¬ 
ERNMENTAL SYSTEM OF CATHOLICISM AND PROTEST¬ 
ANTISM AND THE RESULTS OF THESE DEFECTS. 


I N discussing the question of the Millennium, we 
now pass out of the domain of mediaeval history to 
the great religious movement that opened the six¬ 
teenth century. This is a question of vast moment, 
and one which presents many difficulties. In this work 
I shall not discuss the merits of the Reformation, nor 
weigh its influence upon the moral and intellectual 
forces of the world, nor its effects upon individual and 
civil liberty. Neither shall I question the faith of those 
who departed from the ancient Church; but I shall 
merely consider the results of this gigantic revolution 
in its relation to the development and expansion of 
Christian thought and the extension of the Christian 
empire. A movement may be good in itself, sound in 
principle, based on worthy motives, advanced with 
laudable purposes, yet at the same time it may be in¬ 
opportune, untimely, or its object may be frustrated 
by opposing forces, and the outcome may be a dismal 
failure, producing maleficent consequences. 

Protestantism has begotten some of the brightest 
minds that ever adorned the world with the luster of 
their genius. The field of literature has been enriched 
by the works of such poets as Milton and Byron, Scott 


The Two Kingdoms. 115 

and Burns, Coleridge and Wordsworth, Longfellow 
and Bryant. Edmund Spenser, Francis Bacon, Ben 
Jonson and Abraham Cowley were Protestants. The 
New Religion was glorified by such shining lights as 
Addison, Steele, Swift, Collins, Gray, Goldsmith, Rob¬ 
ertson, Campbell, Shelley, Hallam, Jeffrey. 

These are merely a few of the illustrious men that 
were nursed in the cradle of Protestantism. If we 
come to our own beloved country, what glorious names 
do we find on the historic pages! But it would be 
tedious to recount the long beadroll of renowned men 
of the Protestant creed who have shed luster upon the 
history of Saxon, Celt and Gaelic, to say nothing of the 
French and Teutonic nations and the countries of the 
North. In the field of poetry and fiction, in the field 
of art and science, at the bar and in the pulpit, in the 
forum and in the parliaments, senates and legislatures, 
in the halls of universities and at the helm of nations, 
in the council of kings and in the cabinets of rulers, in 
the navy and in the army, in peace and in war, the 
genius of Protestantism has been manifested for the 
last three hundred years. 

Catholicism has also her renowned men. The 
artistic genius of mediaeval times has never been sur¬ 
passed. Europe is adorned with the works of Angelo 
and Raphael, Titian and Carracci, Domenichino and 
Leonardo da Vinci. Every student of history recog¬ 
nizes the debt which modern progress and civilization 
owe to Columbus and Vasco da Gama, Magellan, 
Balboa and De Soto, La Salle and Marquette, Henne¬ 
pin and Cartier, Ponce de Leon and the Cabots, 
Copernicus and Galileo, Bacon and Gerbert. 

Nicholas de Cusa and Foscarina have made incal¬ 
culable contributions to the development and advance¬ 
ment of astronomy, and their labors have been 


The Two Kingdoms. 


i 16 

enhanced by the dauntless energy and genius of 
Maraldi and Castelli, De Vico and Piazzi, Secchi and. 
Gassendi. The lyre of Dante, Petrarch and Tasso 
have charmed all nations, and Pope, Dryden and 
Moore are reckoned among the great poets of the 
English language. 

Catholicism and Protestantism have vied with 
each other in every department of lore, in every field 
of progress; and their united efforts have produced a 
civilization which has never been equaled, when con¬ 
sidered from every point of view, with its various excel¬ 
lencies, with its manifold blessings, responding to 
every want of human nature, reaching every desire of 
the human heart, filling every aspiration of the human 
soul, covering the globe with the marvels of its 
achievements, astonishing the nations with the magni¬ 
tude of its works. 

Though these two great divisions of the Christian 
Church have accomplished so much in the domain of 
science, literature, progress and civilization, yet far 
more could have been effected through their consoli¬ 
dated efforts. Immediately after the dawn of the 
Reformation the spirit of bigotry was intensified, and 
the blood of heretics was sought in every land. Prot¬ 
estants enjoyed no civil rights in Spain and France, 
and a price was put upon the head of a priest in Eng¬ 
land. 

The spirit of hatred for heretics was displayed not 
only by the disciples of Luther against the adherents 
of Rome, and vice versa, but the sentiment of intol¬ 
erance was directed against dissenters of every class. 
The Puritans were driven from their native Britain by 
the strong arm of the law, and compelled to seek 
refuge on more friendly shores. 


The Two Kingdoms. 117 

But the exiles did not profit by the lessons of 
persecution which they had received in their native 
country, and no sooner had they pitched their tents 
amidst the wilds of the New World than they erected 
the pillory and the scaffold for the obdurate heretic. 
According to the Blue Laws of New England, it was 
an offense to be absent from the services on the Sab¬ 
bath day. It was an offense to show disrespect to the 
word of God or the minister of the Gospel. No one 
could be admitted as a lawyer except Church members. 
Every person doing servile work on Sunday, or in¬ 
dulging in sports on the Lord’s day, was subject to a 
pecuniary mulct and was publicly whipped for such 
transgressions. But if it was known that the offense 
was committed presumptuously against the authority 
of God, the offender was put to death. No one was 
allowed to run on the Sabbath day, or walk in his 
garden, except reverently to and from meeting. No 
woman was permitted to kiss her child on the Lord’s 
day. It was a misdemeanor for a married couple to 
display conjugal affection by osculation or embracing 
on the Sabbath day. 

Whenever the law did not expressly mention the 
crime committed, or award the punishment, the culprit 
was tried and condemned according to the provisions 
of the Bible. Knowing that during the days of the 
Jewish theocracy very severe penalties were attached 
to violation of the Mosaic code, and remembering that 
the Puritans accepted the Ancient Testament, and 
were principally guided by its enactments, we can 
easily conceive what oppressive measures were fre¬ 
quently adopted against the irreligious. In such a 
state of society the life of the careless Christian, or the 
liberal Christian, was placed at the disposal of the 
religious fanatic. 


n8 The: Two Kingdoms. 

To read the common prayer, keep Christmas or 
Saints’ days, make minced pies, play cards, dance or 
play on any instrument of music except the drum, 
trumpet or Jewsharp, was a violation of the Blue Laws 
of Connecticut. 

We are all familiar with the decrees passed against 
witches. Washington Irving, in his history of New 
York, humorously and ironically says that “The grand 
council of the Amphictyons publicly set their faces 
against so deadly and dangerous a sin; and a severe 
scrutiny took place after these nefarious witches, who 
were easily detected by devils’ pinches, black cats, 
broomsticks, and the circumstance of their only being 
able to weep three tears, and those out of the left eye. 
The number of delinquents, however, and their magi¬ 
cal devices, were not more remarkable than their 
diabolical obstinacy. Though exhorted in the most 
solemn, persuasive and affectionate manner to confess 
themselves guilty, and be burnt for the good of religion 
and the entertainment of the public, yet they did most 
pertinaciously persist in asserting their innocence. 
Such incredible obstinacy was in itself deserving of 
immediate punishment, and was sufficient proof, were 
it necessary, that they were in league with the devil. 
Finding, therefore, that neither exhortation, sound 
reason nor friendly entreaty had any avail on these 
hardened offenders, they resorted to the more urgent 
arguments of the torture, and having thus absolutely 
wrung the truth from their stubborn lips, they con¬ 
demned them to undergo the roasting due unto the 
heinous crime they had confessed.” (History of New 
York, pp. 198-199.) 

Bancroft, speaking of the Puritanical spirit in 
New England, says that “These severe laws were 
sharpened against infidelity on one hand and sectarian- 


The Two Kingdoms. 


11 9 

ism on the other; nor can it be denied, nor should it be 
concealed, that the elders, especially Wilson and Nor¬ 
ton, instigated and sustained the government in the 
worst cruelties, till the insufficiency of bigot laws was 
made plain by the fearless resistance of a still more 
stubborn fanaticism/’ (History of United States, ist 
vol., p. 170.) “The popular tenets of Anabaptism 
made it a dangerous rival to the Establishment. The 
sect was proscribed, and its ministers arrested and 
fined or scourged without mercy. Since a particular 
form of worship had become a part of the civil estab¬ 
lishment, irreligion was now to be punished as a civil 
offense. The State was a model of Christ’s Kingdom 
on earth; treason against the civil government was 
treason against Christ; and, reciprocally, as the Gospel 
had the right paramount, blasphemy, or what a jury 
would call blasphemy, was the highest offense in the 
catalogue of crimes. To deny any hook of the Old or 
New Testament to be the written and infallible word 
of God was punishable by fine or by stripes, and in 
case of obstinacy by exile or death/’ (Ibid., p. 171.) 

“A Quaker after the first conviction was to lose 
one ear; after the second, another; after the third, to 
have his tongue bored with a red-hot iron.” (Ibid.) 

These laws for the extirpation of heresy were as 
cruel as the laws of the Spanish Inquisition against the 
progress of religious liberty. 

What carnage has resulted from unrestrained 
bigotry! The history of the Old World is filled with 
the record of religious persecutions. This state of 
affairs has been detrimental to the growth and develop¬ 
ment of Christian charity. The Savior teaches that 
we must love our enemies and do good to those that 
hate and persecute us. Though this is a lesson ad¬ 
mirable in theory and worthy of imitation, yet, I must 


120 


The Two Kingdoms. 


confess, it has always been a severe task for me to 
keep this advice in practice. It has always been easy 
for me to love my friends and despise my enemies, and 
the law that creates religious persecution is responsi¬ 
ble for the many sins of hatred that must accompany it. 

Again, it is an impediment to the conquest of the 
Gospel. You may reason with a man forever on the 
merits of divine revelation, the sublimity of prophetic 
thoughts contained in the Bible, the grandeur and sim¬ 
plicity of the life and teachings of Christ, and the 
earnest zeal of the Apostles; you may convince him 
that the personality of Jesus is unique in the history 
of the world, that, as a reformer, he met the require¬ 
ments of every people and every age, that his moral 
character was peerless, that his divinity was confirmed 
by indisputable miracles, and yet he places more 
weight in the works of the Church than he does in all 
the arguments deduced from Scripture and philosophy. 

How could the Huguenot believe in the divine 
claims of the Roman Catholic creed, when he thought 
of Catherine de Medici and Melendez? How could 
the Quaker accept the tenets of Puritanism, when he 
saw the stock where his brethren had been scourged 
and the ground still reeking with the blood of his co¬ 
religionists ? How could the Baptists love the Pilgrim 
Fathers, and the faith which they planted on New 
England soil, with the life of Roger Williams before 
their eyes? How could the Catholic regard the Estab¬ 
lished Church of England as the sole surviving scion 
of Apostolic simplicity, when he read the massacre of 
his ancestors among the glens of Ireland ? Intolerance 
is the uncompromising foe to the expansion of re¬ 
ligious thought, and this has been the curse of Chris¬ 
tianity for centuries. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


I 2 I 


Again, the dismemberment of Christendom has 
been fatal to missionary success. Sects have emulated 
with each other in carrying the banner of Christian 
faith into heathen lands, and yet their efforts have 
proved a failure. How many native Christians are 
there among the Chinese ? How many have deserted 
their pagodas for the temples of Christ? How many 
Buddhists have forsaken the teachings of their founder 
for the doctrines of the Nazarene? How many Hin¬ 
doos have abandoned the creed of their sires and 
adopted the faith of the pale-faced Apostles of the New 
Testament? How many Persians have rejected the 
fire worship of their ancestors for the doctrines of 
Christianity? How many Sabians have refused to 
pay homage to the stars in deference to the Man of 
Galilee ? 

When we consider the vast sums that have been 
collected, and the zeal that has been expended for the 
conversion of pagans, we must acknowledge that 
Christianity has accomplished very little. 

What is the cause of this dismal failure? Some 
enthusiasts, blind to the real cause, may attribute the 
sterility of our efforts to Christianize heathen lands to 
the severity of the Christian code of morality. There 
is some truth in the declaration; yet this argument is 
impotent when we consider the elevating influence of 
the Gospel and the impression that its doctrines made 
on the minds of the early pagans. Within a few gen¬ 
erations the entire civilized world abandoned the 
fallacies and absurdities of polytheism for the pure, 
simple teachings of Christ. Why have not similar 
results been produced in modern times? In the prim¬ 
itive age of Christianity there were no divisions, and 
the Apostles were a unit in the dissemination of Chris¬ 
tian truth, and the pagan beholding this mighty 


122 


The Two Kingdoms. 


empire, one in doctrine and one in government, was 
amazed with the magnitude of its structure and the 
unity of its faith. 

But now a multiform creed has succeeded the 
unity of the apostolic age, and the pagan of the nine¬ 
teenth century, being confronted with the diverse 
tenets of a hundred denominations, each claiming a 
divine character, is convinced, by this multiplicity of 
views, that the God of the Christians is the God of dis-. 
sension instead of the God of truth; and, therefore, he 
thinks it preferable to adhere to the vulgar supersti¬ 
tions cemented by the stroke of centuries than to adopt 
the conflicting opinions of men disagreeing among 
themselves. 

Were all the sects of Christendom united in one 
compact body, professing one faith and acting as one 
organization, the triumphs of missionaries among the 
wilds of Asia and Africa would be as stupendous 
to-day as they were eighteen centuries ago, when the 
Twelve bore the Cross from the walls of Jerusalem to 
the hills of Rome, and from the ramparts of Carthage 
to the shores of the North Sea. 

The thoughtful must be cognizant of the fact that 
Christian education is the handmaid of Christian faith. 
Salutary teachings must be inculcated on the plastic 
mind of youth, and if this be neglected, the< coming 
age will be prolific in the generation of infidelity 
and atheism. The school house should repose within 
the shadow of the church steeple, and whenever these 
two are divorced, Christianity will mourn the curse of 
her barrenness. 

How can this be accomplished where there are 
many denominations? Perhaps some one will say that 
we should introduce the Bible into the public schools. 
But the Bible must be interpreted, and the interpreta- 


The Two Kingdoms. • 123 

tion becomes sectarian teaching. In the sacred volume 
we read that Christ said to Nicodemus: “Unless a 
man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost he 
can not enter into the kingdom of heaven/’ The Epis¬ 
copalian claims that these words announce the neces¬ 
sity of regeneration by the agency of the purifying 
flood, whereas the disciple of Roger Williams holds 
that baptism is merely a sign that we have accepted the 
Gospel. Let us presume that the teacher gives an 
explanation of this passage. In one case he will offend 
the Episcopalians and in the other he will offend the 
Baptists. To avoid these controversies, and the essen¬ 
tial unpleasantness following such discussion, to secure 
the strict preservation of religious liberty, the Bible 
must be ostracized from the public school. 

Another suggestion is offered, and we find it quite 
as inadequate as the foregoing. Let the government 
build and support schools for each denomination, as 
the government of Austria has wisely done. But the 
difficulties to such a solution of the educational prob¬ 
lem in this country are far more numerous and more 
arduous than in Austria. There are only two denomi¬ 
nations of any magnitude in the Austro-Hungarian 
empire, while we have nearly every creed under the 
sun; and as there are more infidels and agnostics than 
Christians, it would be impossible to carry out this 
plan in America. 

I hear some one say: Do you want a union of 
Church and State, with the Bible in the public school? 
By no means, for that is the greatest curse that can 
afflict any nation. I am simply deploring the fact that, 
owing to the vast number of religious denominations 
in this country, necessitating the exclusion of religious 
instruction in the state schools, our nation is rapidly 
drifting into the ranks of atheism. 


124 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


To-day we have about seventy millions of people 
in the United States, and from this number there are 
not more than twenty-five millions of church-goers, 
leaving forty-five millions of practical infidels. The 
only remedy for this state of affairs is a reunion of 
Christian denominations, with religious instructions in 
the public schools. 

If the dogmas of Catholicism and Protestantism 
are too divergent ever to meet, then let the Reformed 
Churches form a union among themselves, and the 
difficulty will be obviated. In that case, the number 
of each division of Christianity would be sufficiently 
large to justify the erection and maintenance of sepa¬ 
rate schools where instructions, agreeable to the 
religious sentiments of each, can be imparted. 

This is the plan pursued in Austria, also in Ireland 
and Scotland. The Lutherans in Austria are furnished 
with schools of their owfl creed, and the clergymen of 
that sect are compelled by the government to visit' 
those schools for the purpose of imparting Christian 
doctrine to the children. Mr. Kay, in his Social Con¬ 
dition and Education of the People of Europe, refers 
to this and other facts of a similar character, and he 
offers them as illustrations of how the difficulties of 
religious instructions in the public school can be over¬ 
come. “And let it be remembered,” writes Kay, “that 
these great results have been attained notwithstanding 
obstacles at least as great as those which make it so 
difficult for us to act [in England]. Look at Austria, 
Bavaria and the Prussian Rhine provinces, and the 
Swiss Cantons of Lucerne and Soleure. Will any one 
say that the religious difficulties in those countries are 
less than those that exist in our own? And yet in 
each of these countries the difficulties arising from 
religious differences have been overcome, and all their 


The Two Kingdoms. 


I2 5 


children have been brought under the influences of 
religious education, without any religious party having 
been offended.” 

This quotation, selected from the writings of the 
Rev. Alfred Young, throws much light on the subject 
we are discussing. As Mr. Kay is a stanch Protestant, 
he can not be accused of prejudice in favor of the 
Roman Catholic creed, and his book should be read 
by people of all denominations, for it contains an anti¬ 
dote for the prevalent errors of this age and nation in 
regard to the educational question. 

Catholics and Protestants, in their earnest en¬ 
deavors for the weal of the country, and the advance¬ 
ment of Christian knowledge, have both done great 
injury to the common cause. The former, realizing 
the necessity of religious in conjunction with secular 
education, have erected parochial schools, conducted 
under the influence of the clergy, and in their great 
zeal for the preservation of the Catholic faith, have 
very imprudently, in many cases, denounced the irre¬ 
ligious tendency of the public school system, thereby 
leaving on the minds of the thoughtless and the big¬ 
oted, the impression that they were enemies of enlight¬ 
enment and intellectual liberty. 

Much, however, can be said in justification of the 
course pursued by the Catholic priesthood and 
hierarchy. Not infrequently the public school boards 
have been influenced by an anti-Catholic sprit, and, 
forgetting the fact that these institutions were sup¬ 
ported by taxation levied on all denominations alike, 
text books inimical to the Catholic faith, insulting to 
Catholic feelings, misrepresenting history, and thus 
casting opprobrium on the Church of Rome, have 
been introduced into the public schools. 


126 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


Again, secular journalism and the Protestant pul¬ 
pit, perhaps ignorant of the real motive actuating 
Catholics in their position on parochial education, 
have held them up to scorn, and have falsely attributed 
the moral degeneracy of the age to the widespread 
dominion of Catholicism. 

Jealousy of sectarian supremacy has been the 
prime agent in the creation of so many obstacles to a 
mutual understanding and reconciliation. If Protest¬ 
ants proposed the reading of the Bible in the public 
schools, Catholics denounced this innovation as a* 
preparatory step to the introduction of sectarian edu¬ 
cation. If Catholics advocated the establishment of 
separate schools at the public expense, Protestants 
imagined that they saw arising, in the dim and distant 
future, the colossal figure of Rome arrayed in the 
purple robes of royalty; they heard the silvery bells 
celebrating the nuptials between Church and State, 
and they beheld the bridal altar hung with chains and 
scorpion whips. 

I see but one solution to the difficulty'. As the 
public schools are supported bv all the churches, let 
the school board and the teachers be selected from 
each denomination, according to the number of pupils 
representing that denomination. There should be no 
religious instruction imparted during the study hours, 
but after the school is dismissed every clergyman 
should be invited to deliver an exhortation to the chil¬ 
dren affiliated with his church. 

Protestantism and Catholicism have both made 
serious mistakes in their administration, and these mis¬ 
takes have been disastrous to the expansion of Chris¬ 
tian influence. Rome has been too conservative in her 
government, too obstinate in the defense of her author¬ 
ity, or rather in the centralization of that authority. 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


127 


In the primitive ages of Christianity, the laity 
formed a constituent part of the body politic, and had 
an elective voice in the appointment of bishops and 
other ecclesiastics. It frequently occurred that the lay 
members of the Church disregarded the proper quali¬ 
fications required in those filling such exalted posi¬ 
tions, and often gave their votes to sacerdotal 
politicians who sought ecclesiastical honors through 
ambition and avarice, instead of motives worthy of 
their sacred vocation. Owing to these flagrant abuses 
so repeatedly perpetrated, the Church restricted the 
elective franchise, and thus 'made the laity a nonentity 
in the ecclesiastical government. 

At the present time the College of Cardinals elects 
the Pope; the Pope appoints bishops, and the latter 
enjoy the sole right of filling parochial vacancies. 
According to the provision of the Third Plenary 
Council of Baltimore, held in the year 1884, whenever 
an episcopal see falls vacant in this country by the 
death, removal or resignation of its incumbent, the 
Metropolitan sends to the oldest suffragan the names 
of three ecclesiastics whom he thinks worthy to wear 
the honors of the mitre. Each suffragan also forwards 
three names to the Metropolitan. The consultors and 
irremovable rectors likewise present three names to 
the Metropolitan. Within thirty days from the date of 
the vacancy the bishops of the province meet at the 
archiepiscopal residence, or some other place desig¬ 
nated by the Archbishop, and together they discuss 
the merits of all the ecclesiastics who have been pro¬ 
posed, and they select three from the number, and then 
they forward the names of these three to Rome, desig¬ 
nating them worthy, more worthy and most worthy. 

Although Rome is not compelled to confirm the 
nomination, she usually does so, relying upon the 


128 


The Two Kingdoms. 


judgment and prudence of those who act in her name. 
The Metropolitan and bishops of the province may 
decide upon the names submitted by the consultors 
and irremovable rectors; but in case they make other 
selections, they must give Rome their reasons for not 
confirming, by their votes, the choice of the diocesan 
electors. As the consultors are very frequently irre¬ 
movable rectors, the franchise is very limited; and 
even supposing that they are distinct individuals, the 
suffrage does not include one-seventh of the priests of 
the diocese; and hence the other six parts are silent 
spectators, calmly acquiescing to the will of an insig¬ 
nificant minority. 

The minority is not only insignificant numerically, 
but, as they virtually owe their promotion to the kind¬ 
ness of their superior, they are quite often distin¬ 
guished for mental inability, cerebral crudity and 
moral debility. Moreover, the choice of the consultors 
and irremovable rectors is usually ignored, unless con¬ 
firmed by the voice of the bishops, and hence we may 
justly classify these diocesan electors as mere figure¬ 
heads who must conform to the opinion of the pro¬ 
vincial ordinaries, if they wish to be heard. 

What is the result of this method of procedure? 
The development of pharisaical proclivities in every 
priest who has episcopal aspirations; for, knowing well 
that his advancement depends solely on the opinion of 
the MetropQlitan and his suffragans, he will carefully 
and sedulously extirpate every sentiment that does not 
touch a responsive chord in the heart of those who 
hold his fate in their hands. If the bishops denounce 
the free schools, he must follow their example. If the 
bishops are opposed to free inquiry, he must applaud 
their course. If the bishops are foes to the spirit of 
progress, he must find his heroes among the conserv- 


The Two Kingdoms. 


29 


atism of past centuries. If the bishops maintain that 
Masonry is the agency of hell, he must make an affi¬ 
davit that he has seen the members of that fraternity 
arrayed in cloven feet and belching forth fire and brim¬ 
stone like the yawning jaws of Mt. Vesuvius. 

Besides, this is a world of dependence, where 
every man is a cog in the mighty wheel of progress. 
The merchant is affable with his acquaintances because 
he depends upon their patronage. The politician 
knows people that he has never seen before, and cor¬ 
dially greets every one, because his success in life is at 
the mercy of the public. The lawyer always wears a 
bland smile, and is particularly fond of the unfortunate, 
for he is seeking clients. The physician bows to the 
humble pedestrians, as they plod on through the slush 
and mire in their daily toil, for they may be serviceable 
in the extension of his practice. Nations court the 
friendship of nations that they loathe, for the sake of 
commercial aggrandizement. 

However, there are a .few men in the world that 
are entirely independent. The Czar of all the Russias 
can dispatch his recalcitrant servants, and those who 
rebel against the authority of his ukases, to the wilds of 
Siberia. The Sultan of Turkey can order the massacre 
of his subjects, like the Janizaries were slaughtered to 
relieve the anxiety of the Sublime Porte. The word of 
the petty autocrat in Asia has the force of constitu¬ 
tional enactments, and the promotion of every priest 
is subject to the caprice of his bishop. 

The emancipated slaves of the South, ignorant 
and licentious as they are, trampling upon every law, 
human and divine, when their passions are stimulated, 
are granted the privilege of voting for those who are 
to fill public offices; and yet the cultured, refined Cath- 
✓ olic clergyman is an automatic piece of mechanism 


I 3 ° 


This Two Kingdoms 


who must submit to the inevitable, and be silent when 
his dearest interests are imperiled. 

Nominated by the bishops of the province and 
confirmed by the Apostolic See, the newly elected 
sovereign ascends the vacant throne not infrequently 
with the same sentiments that a governor general 
takes possession of a conquered country, and he is 
just as totally alienated from the diocesan clergy and 
just as independent in his administration as a viceroy 
in India or a lord lieutenant sent from the Court of St. 
James to Dublin Castle. 

The ordinary should be a father to his priests, but 
usually he is worse than a step-father, and in some 
cases he assumes the role and exercises the authority 
of a warden deputed to take charge of a convict plan¬ 
tation. 

Every child is anxious to meet his parent, and 
during years of wandering from his native State, or 
native land, his happiest moments are spent in recall¬ 
ing the pleasures of youth; and the joy of visiting, 
some day, the old home is among his fondest anticipa¬ 
tions. The priest, on the contrary, avoids the episcopal 
residence as if it were a pest-house, eschews the bishop 
as a criminal flies from the sheriff; and the thought 
that he will not be compelled to confront his superior 
for another year, is among his most pleasant reflec¬ 
tions. 

If priests were as unkind to their parishioners as 
bishops are to their priests, ere long there would not 
be a Catholic in the land. 

However, I will not say that there are no excep¬ 
tions to this state of affairs. The purple covers many 
grand and noble men who are as zealous as the 
Apostles and as kind as the father of the prodigal. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


13 i 

But the monopoly of parochial appointments 
vested in the episcopacy is far more fatal to the prog¬ 
ress of Christianity than the creation of bishops by the 
voice of the few, exclusive of the will of the many. 

The destiny of the Church is in the hands of her 
pastors, for they administer to the spiritual necessities 
of the multitude. The bishop may be wise learned, 
virtuous; but his efforts will be fruitless unless sup¬ 
ported by an able and efficient body of clergy. A brave 
general may be an inspiration to his men, and may 
lead them to many a glorious victory, but if his soldiers 
are devoid of physical courage, inefficient by reason 
of corporal debility, inexperienced in active warfare, 
or defective in military discipline, his orders will be 
futile, and his campaign will redound to the defeat of 
his country and the dishonor and disgrace of her flag. 

How can the ministry of the Church be rendered 
able and progressive? Education and discipline may 
accomplish wonders in this field, but unless there is a 
fair competition among the clergy, the promise of 
youthful genius and eloquence, impregnable virtue and 
dauntless courage, will be blighted, and the fruit of 
college training will wither and decay in the early 
years, and the noontide of life will be shadowed by the 
clouds of sorrow and disappointment. 

Here is a young man of ordinary caliber. He was 
never destined by the Creator to dazzle the intellectual 
firmament with waves of purple light; and, knowing 
that his incapacity will ever debar him from contesting 
successfully with the brighter minds of the diocese, he 
becomes a court sycophant, and plies his craft so skill¬ 
fully that he is adopted as a child of the episcopal 
family. All honor is conferred on him; all secrets are 
communicated to him. He is the factotum of the dio¬ 
cese. His will is the will of the bishop, and his opin- 


132 


The Two Kingdoms. 


ions, conceived in hatred and born in malice, become 
legal statutes. His power at the throne being a rec¬ 
ognized fact, his favors are wooed by the clerical 
adulator, the sacerdotal bumpkin and the ecclesiastical 
politician, who, not having sufficient intelligence to 
attract the admiration of the multitude and demand 
promotion from the bishop, and deficient in the moral 
courage essential to sustain them in their mental insig¬ 
nificance and humiliating obscurity, endeavor to 
retrieve the misfortune of their natural incapacity by 
mounting the ladder of fame through the potent 
agency of the diocesan functionary. Born without 
brains, reared in an atmosphere of ignorance, having 
no originality, incapable of conceiving the simplest 
idea, these consecrated louts and sacerdotal hypocrites 
are designated to. fill the most important charges in 
the diocese. This is a fair illustration on one side. 

I shall give an example of a different character. 
Another young man has been gifted with splendid nat¬ 
ural endowments; and, by dint of application, his 
attainments correspond with his native ability. Being 
a man of a strong intellect, he is consequently a man of 
marked individuality, independent in thought and 
action. Always equal to the occasion, he does not 
require the assistance of others, and he proudly spurns 
the advice of episcopal subordinates, and refuses to 
pay homage to the little demigod who poses as an 
ecclesiastic mediator. 

What is the result of this haughty attitude? The 
eloquence and erudition of the diocese is relegated to 
the obscurity of rural districts. An embargo is levied 
upon this youthful genius, and the urban rectors, the 
voluntary creations and vile automatons of the pettv 
autocrat that rules from the foot of the episcopal 
throne, are strictly enjoined to eschew the presence of 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


133 


the doomed priest, as if he were the son of perdition, 
the spawn of hell and the emissary of Beelzebub. 

Do I exaggerate? Facts within the realm of my 
personal experience justify every declaration contained 
in these pages. Mandates couched in the following 
terms have been given by these contemptible varlets 
to their obsequious henchmen: Do not visit Rev. A. 
under the penalty of losing my friendship. You are 
hereby authorized not to invite Rev. B. to preach in 
your church, and if you infringe upon this order, you 
must be prepared to suffer the consequences of such 
disobedience. You must forthwith and without delay 
affiliate with the clique of which I am the almighty 
potentate, for the purpose of persecuting and banish¬ 
ing from these quarters the Rev. C., whose presence is 
obnoxious to me, and whose influence will ere long 
prove fatal to my tranquillity and equanimity. 

It is useless to say that the orders were obeyed, 
and a mark was placed on the foreheads of Revs. A., 
] >., C., not as Cain of old was branded by the Creator, 
that no injury might be inflicted on him, but that all 
men might know that these sacerdotal culprits had 
violated the decalogue of the factotum, and must be 
hunted like the wolves in Ireland, after the desolating 
wave of Cromwellian barbarity had filled the land with 
victims of the sword. 

These public functionaries have pretensions to 
very ardent zeal, and every act that they perform is 
intended for the success of the Church and the honor 
and glory of God. Yet it is remarkable that their 
ardor is very deleterious in its nature, crushing the 
talents of able men. depriving congregations of effi¬ 
cient rectors and abusing them with the ministrations 
of mental pigmies. When not engaged in fabricating 
accusations against worthy priests, or ferreting out 


134 


The Two Kingdoms. 


secrets that may be advantageous to their fell in¬ 
trigues, these wiseacres spend their leisure moments 
in idle gossip about the shortcomings of their brethren, 
in visiting the aristocracy of the diocese, pandering to 
the calumniating proclivities of the canaille. When 
cloyed and overcome by their onerous labors, they 
seek recuperation from the effects of corporal lassitude 
and mental ennui by spending thirty days at the sea¬ 
side in the summer, a month in the balmy breeze of 
Florida during the winter and several weeks at French 
Lick in the spring. Money is no object to them, be¬ 
cause they enjoy the most lucrative positions in the 
Church. 

It is true that they are free from the least suspicion 
of crime. Their lives are edifying to the community. 
But still, with this sanctimonious exterior, they are the 
very persons of whom Christ speaks when he says 
that they “are like whitened sepulchers, which out¬ 
wardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of 
dead men’s bones and of all filthiness.” 

What is the cause of these evils? The centraliza¬ 
tion of power in the episcopacy. The ordinary of the 
diocese has a right to make appointments regardless 
of the wishes of the clergy and of the laity. The Coun¬ 
cil of Baltimore attempted to eliminate the abuse of 
this power, but its provisions are merely partial rem¬ 
edies, being applicable to very few parishes, and, even 
in these cases, totally inadequate to meet the ends of 
justice. There are certain parishes in some dioceses 
which are open to competition. When such a parish 
falls vacant, the bishop notifies his priests that a cqh- 
cursus will be held to determine the merits of the 
candidates. The conditions for admission into the 
concursus are, first, that the aspirant has exercised the 
ministry with success in the diocese for ten years; and, 
secondly, that his character be above reproach. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


: 35 


The applicants having been admitted, the exami¬ 
nation is .held. Let us presume that there are ten 
competitors for the vacant parish, and nine of them 
pass a perfect examination^ showing that they are 
thoroughly familiar with philosophy, theology, Scrip¬ 
ture, history, conversant with the literature of every 
age and nation, eloquent speakers and able admin¬ 
istrators. It might embarrass the judge to decide upon 
the most worthy candidate among so many able men. 
However, the tenth applicant is a man of ordinary 
caliber, has no pretensions to learning, is not gifted 
with fluency of speech, and wholly deficient in the 
characteristics of oratory; yet he has sufficient capacity 
to discharge the duties assigned to the parish. A re¬ 
port of the respective ability of these ten priests is 
given to the bishop, and it devolves upon him to desig¬ 
nate the successful candidate. Let us remember, how¬ 
ever, that the ordinary may ignore the splendid attain¬ 
ments of the nine, and reward the modest capacity of 
the one with the honors and responsibility of the va¬ 
cant parish. 

The people may clamor against the appointment; 
they may remonstrate with the Bishop that his choice 
is detrimental to the interests of the congregation; 
they may advance the most potent arguments against 
the wisdom of his decision ; they may suggest that 
many tepid Christians and some imbued with the 
errors of the age may be redeemed by the force of 
eloquence and logic so sadly absent in the appointee; 
yet their expostulations are useless, for the ordinary is 
acting according to the provisions of canon law, which 
leaves the matter to his option. 

While a concursus is held for the appointment of 
irremovable rectors, the vacancies in other congrega¬ 
tions are filled by the immediate designation of the 


136 


The Two Kingdoms. 


bishop, and his choice is not directed by any definite 
rules, or by any special qualifications on the part of 
the candidates. Therefore, the mental weakling may 
be preferred to the intellectual Colossus, and thus the 
most incompetent priests in the diocese may preside 
over the largest city congregations and administer to 
the necessities of the most refined and cultured people, 
while the brightest are sent to the swamps and woods 
to eke out a miserable existence and fritter away their 
talents in preaching to boors, and pass the tedious 
years listening to the croaking of frogs and the hooting 
of owls. 

What is the result of this system of appointments? 
Disastrous to the Church and clergy alike. Feeling 
that his promotion depends upon the favor of the 
bishop, the unscrupulous priest will resort to. the most 
cunning and contemptible means to blight the pros¬ 
pects of a possible competitor, and to advance his own 
cause. He will not utilize his time in preparing ser¬ 
mons, for he is independent of his people. They have 
not been instrumental in his selection, and their voice 
is impotent in the accomplishment of his removal. He 
will often neglect his duty; and should his parishioners 
criticise his conduct, they will be silenced with a tor¬ 
rent of abuse. 

How do the most of priests spend their time? Of 
course they all have their regular duties which must 
be discharged. But I speak of the leisure hours. Do 
they devote that precious time to history, philosophy 
and literature? By no means. The city priests are 
usually occupied in canvassing the possibilities of an 
early promotion, in lobbying for some preferment, in 
discussing the merits and demerits of their adversaries, 
oftener, however, their demerits; in censuring the 
errors of some obscure rector living on the outskirts 


The; Two Kingdoms. 137 

of civilization, where it would be heroism to keep the 
faith, and where an apostle would become an apostate; 
and they end their cynical observations in a hood of 
sardonic tears over the moral degeneracy of the age, 
the irregularities of the priesthood and the sorrows of 
the Church. The thought of preaching never occurs 
to them as a sacred duty, and they imagine that the 
simplest instruction, which requires no previous labor, 
is sufficient for the laity. 

These men are ordinarily opposed to any pro¬ 
gressive movement, for that demands toil, and they 
denounce the efforts of the learned and the eloquent 
in the lecture field, because such an innovation might 
establish a precedent for others, and thus destroy the 
quiet, indolent repose of their humdrum lives. 

And what about the rural pastor? Will he make 
no sacrifice for the weal of his flock? In case he en¬ 
joys the friendship of the episcopal family, or is a 
satellite of the throne, his promotion is secured, and it 
would be folly for him to waste his mental energy for 
the benefit of a community which he intends to aban¬ 
don at the earliest opportunity; and he patiently 
awaits the dawn of the day when he will bid farewell 
to his old congregation and go forth to receive the 
laurel wreath, the recompense for his stupid inactivity. 
Those who look for no higher position in the Church 
resign themselves to the edict of cruel fate, and calmly 
pass their years in slothful ease. 

The large intelligent congregations are usually 
filled with the most incompetent pastors, and the pro¬ 
gressive, erudite, eloquent young men are deputed to 
poor country missions; and, owing to these unwise 
and unjust selections, the priesthood is degenerating 
and the laitv are drifting away from the faith. 


138 The Two Kingdoms. 

The clergy should elect their bishops, and the 
laity should be entitled to vote for their pastors. This 
is the only remedy for the existing evils in the Catholic 
Church. Should universal franchise be granted, fair 
competition would be inaugurated, and only efficient 
men would be promoted to responsible charges. 

The people know what they want better than those 
who are not interested, and the man who gives them 
the best service is the man they should have. Perhaps 
it would be impossible to please every member in the 
congregation; yet the voice of the masses should rule; 
and he who is elected by the majority of votes should 
be delegatecl to fill the office. 

I have advocated this method of filling parochial 
vacancies to several Catholic clergymen; and they 
have, without exception, stanchly opposed its utility 
and applicability, giving as their reason that clerical 
independence would be utterly destroyed, making the 
priest a servant of the people. Clerical independence 
has been the ruin of the Church. Had the hierarchy 
yielded to the protestations of the laity in the four¬ 
teenth and fifteenth centuries, perhaps the biography 
of Luther would never have been interwoven with the 
history of the Reformation. There are many lessons 
of wisdom that we can learn from our separated breth¬ 
ren, and this is one of them. 

Let the people elect their pastors, and then every 
priest in the land will become a close student, and will 
develop his talents, that he may win victories in a fair 
competition, the life and soul of progress. I am op¬ 
posed to conservatism when it has outlived its useful¬ 
ness, and I am an ardent advocate of universal 
franchise and home rul6 in the Church as well as in tjie 
State. I have always been a foe to despotism, and I 
;think that taxation without representation is despotism 


The Two Kingdoms. 139 

of the darkest dye. Even in the Middle Age the free 
towns and corporations of Europe could not be taxed 
without their consent. The attempt of the British min¬ 
istry to tax the American colonies without representa¬ 
tion plunged the nation into a war which terminated 
in the triumph of our flag and the establishment of our 
independence. 

To expect the people to erect churches and sup¬ 
port pastors who are imposed on them without their 
consent, and frequently against their wishes, is taxa¬ 
tion without representation. I do not pretend to pos¬ 
sess the gift of prophecy, but yet I do not hesitate to 
say that, if the Catholics of this country are deprived 
of their natural rights for another half century, our 
temples will be abandoned, and the Church, sitting in 
desolation and darkness, will bewail the loss of her 
millions. 

I know congregations that are completely ruined 
by the incompatibility existing between the pastor and 
his parishioners. I know that petitions have been 
presented for the removal of undesirable pastors, and 
those petitions have been unceremoniously rejected. 
I know cases where foreigners, unacquainted with the 
language of the country, have been assigned to very 
important charges. It must be very entertaining to a 
cultured gentleman to hear sermons delivered in bar¬ 
barous English, and it certainly makes him feel proud 
to bring his Protestant friends to a church where these 
rude discourses are heard. 

A foreign ecclesiastic comes to this country be¬ 
cause his possibilities in Europe are not very promis¬ 
ing, and if he would remain in his native land, he 
would never attain higher honors than an urban 
curacy, a rural pastorate or a chaplaincy in some con¬ 
vent. Is he satisfied with such appointments here? 


140 


Th£ Two Kingdoms. 


No; his ambition desires a more important field of 
action. He aims to fill the highest position in the 
diocese, with the assurance of some day wearing the 
mitre. America is full of brilliant young men who 
were born and educated in this country, and yet they 
are ignored in episcopal appointments, for the Church 
must find honorable and important places for for¬ 
eigners. 

The elective franchise granted to the laity would 
forever abolish national questions in the Church. Let 
the German- and English-speaking congregations 
choose their rectors, and the difficulties arising from 
parochial claims and parochial rights will be ended. 

If Catholicism has erred in the centralization of 
authority, Protestantism has erred in the abolition of 
authority. In the first place, the disciples of Luther, 
Calvin and Knox have failed to protect the inspiration 
of the Bible. If the Scriptures have not been inspired 
bv the Holy Ghost, then the sacred volume is merely 
a human book, and has no power to bind the con¬ 
sciences of men. 

Henry P. Smith, of Cincinnati, and Dr. Briggs, 
his coadjutor, the two most erudite and influential 
ministers in the Presbyterian Church in rhis country, 
both denounced the inspiration of the Bible. What 
an example for the rising generation when professors 
of theology will thus undermine the foundations of 
Christianity! What can you expect from the young 
clergymen educated under the influence of such men? 
They will go forth into the world inoculated with the 
germs of infidelity, and lead their less enlightened 
brethren confided to their charge into all kinds of 
error respecting the dogmas of Christianity, until they 
end their speculations in the acceptance of agnosticism 
as the only solution for religious difficulties. In the 


The Two Kingdoms. 


H 1 

year 1891 a minister in Kansas publicly asserted that 
Sam Jones was a greater man than Tesus Christ. In 
1897 Lyman Abbott, in* a sermon delivered in Brook¬ 
lyn, declared that a large portion of the Bible is folk¬ 
lore. Every day we read in the public press that some 
clergyman has attacked the inspiration of the Sacred 
Scriptures. 

How long will the Bible stand at this rate? The 
most of our people to-day are practical infidels, and 
they have, in many cases, imbibed that spirit from the 
public utterances of men whom their fathers paid hand¬ 
somely to teach the word of God to their children. 
When I was going to Europe last summer I met a 
young man -on the ship who claimed to be a church 
member, and yet he boldly asserted that the Bible was 
only a fiction and Christianity was a humbug. 

Fathers and mothers, if you wish your children to 
be obedient, kind, loving, impress upon their youthful 
minds the authority of the Bible. Open that sacred 
book, and there you read that every blessing will 
crown the life of the obedient son, and heaven’s male¬ 
diction will crush the rebellious child. “Honor thy 
father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath com¬ 
manded thee, that thou mayst live a long time, and it 
may be well with thee in the land which the Lord thy 
God will give thee.” (Dent. 5-16.) “He that curseth 
his father and mother, shall die the death.” (Exod. 
21-17.) 

You wish your daughters to be pure and your 
sons to be honest, and you will find that these virtues 
are inculcated in the Bible under the severest penalties. 
You admire the merciful and the charitable, and the 
Sacred Scriptures abound with expressions of praise 
for mercy and charity. 


142 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


There is no law and there is no public or domestic 
duty that is not supported by the Bible. “Thou shalt 
not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt 
not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness against thy 
neighbor; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife; 
thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.’* These 
commandments are the fundamental principles upon 
which rests the mighty fabric pf modern civilization. 

Destroy the Decalogue, and at one fell stroke you 
annihilate every national, every social and every do¬ 
mestic virtue. With one blow you sunder family ties, 
cut in twain the cords that bind the hearts of husband 
and wife, father and mother. Destroy the authority of 
the Bible, and you destroy the peace of home and the 
pleasures of the fireside, cast little children upon the 
world in helpless infancy, blight the prospects of prom¬ 
ising youth, fostered by the care of a father, blossom¬ 
ing in the smiles of a mother's love. Destroy the 
sanctity of the Bible, and you fill the world with the 
abominations of Mohammedan lust, legalized in the 
form of polygamy; you take from the cheeks of the 
tender maiden the blush of virgin modesty; you defile 
the marriage couch with the breath of unhallowed love 
and break the bonds of sacred wedlock; you cover the 
land with harems and brothels, and erect on every hill 
the altars of Moloch, where the blood of innocent 
babes is sacrificed to glut the passions of the heartless 
multitude. Abolish the teachings of the Bible, and 
down comes the sanctity of law; down comes the tri¬ 
bunal of justice; down come parliaments and senates, 
and the swelling, maddening billows of anarchy will 
rise and roll and froth and rage until every institution 
will become a charred and blackened ruin. 

Look at France during the Revolution, when the 
Goddess of Reason was enthroned upon the high altar 


The Two Kingdoms. 


M 3 


of Notre Dame. Murder ran riot, and the ancient 
kingdom of the Franks was drenched in human gore. 
Tell the poor man shivering on your doorstep that the 
Bible is the work of human hands, and that it has no 
moral authority, and he will arm himself with the 
poisoned dagger and seek the blood of his fancied 
enemies. Tell the wayward girl who seeks consolation 
in her sorrows in the story of Magdalene, that Christ 
was only an ordinary man, with no divine power, and 
that his promises of eternal reward for the penitent are 
empty boasts, that her hopes beyond the grave are 
built upon vain illusions, more fragile than columns of 
smoke, more unsubstantial than the beauties of the 
rainbow, more fleeting than the morning vapors that 
arise from the bosom of the valley; tell her that dreams 
of future glory are like the mirage of the desert, and 
the visions of nocturnal slumber, and she will seek 
refuge from the woes of her life in the vortex of dissi¬ 
pation, or in the joys of illicit love, and the tinsel pleas¬ 
ures of the bagnio. When she has trod all the paths 
of iniquity, fathomed all the depths of crime, tasted all 
the fruit of vice; when she becomes a victim of the 
mortal contagion that ends the career of unbridled 
passion, she will go forth in some dark night from the 
gay resort of her young years to the bridge that spans 
the chasm and plunge into the shadows of death. 

If Christ is not God, then there is no revelation; 
no moral law; no responsibility to a Supreme Being; 
no tribunal beyond the tomb ; no life beyond the mystic 
valley; and the unfortunate of every class, whether it 
be the child of poverty or the heir of wealth, the hum¬ 
ble peasant or the inmate of the palace, the obscure 
subject or the high official, will ignore the majesty of 
the government and the sanctity of its decrees, and 
society will retrograde to the sad conditions of savage 


144 The Two Kingdoms. 

life. The teachings of Christ have uplifted the world, 
and the refinement, culture and civilization of this glor¬ 
ious nineteenth century have resulted from the inspira¬ 
tions of the Bible. 

A few years ago, Colonel Ingersoll delivered one 
of his characteristic tirades at the Grand Opera House 
in Cincinnati against the Church, and the next Sunday 
he was answered by a number of prominent ministers 
in the Queen City. And what was the substance of 
their answers ? According to these exponents of Pro¬ 
testant creeds, Ingersoll was correct in his arraign¬ 
ment of the degrading worship of the Romish Church,, 
but his strictures were inapplicable to the pure form 
of Christianity embodied in the Reformation. Was 
this criticism just and charitable? Was it manly and 
prudent? Did these ministers elevate their influence 
in the community by uniting with the agnostic in his 
savage onslaught against the oldest form of Christi¬ 
anity ? 

We can not expect dissenters to defend the*creed 
which they have abjured; but, at the same time, it is. 
injudicious to resort to calumny and misrepresentation 
in vindication of their religious convictions. I am not 
a Protestant, yet I see much in that form of Christi¬ 
anity worthy of admiration, and I would be the last 
man to deride Protestantism and to impeach the sin-, 
cerity of its adherents. Protestantism is founded on 
the Bible, and it accepts the divine character of that 
book. It teaches the fall of man and the necessity 
of redemption; the Incarnation of Christ, and the 
atonement for the sins of the world; the promulgation 
of a new law, and the universality of its dominion; 
the beauty of virtue and the heinousness of vice, and 
future rewards and punishments corresponding to the 
lives of individuals upon earth. Protestantism teaches 


The Two Kingdoms. 


H 5 

the ten commandments; inculcates the sanctity of gov¬ 
ernment ; impresses upon its subjects that rulers must 
be just, that citizens must be loyal, that husbands 
should love their wives and wives should love their 
husbands, that children should be obedient to their 
parents, that Christians sjiould be kind to the poor 
and the unfortunate, and that charity covereth a mul¬ 
titude of sins. 

I am not blind to the fact that Protestants have 
been mighty agents in the extension of civilization. I 
behold their .triumphs in every department of science, 
and I would consider it a sin crying to heaven for 
vengeance, should I attempt to belittle their efforts or 
to withhold their meed of praise. 

The Catholic Church has likewise been active in 
every field, and the labors of her sons have been in¬ 
strumental in the civilization of every land. They 
protected and preserved that very Bible which Inger- 
soll had made the butt of his coarse sarcasm and ridi¬ 
cule. Could not those ministers in defending Christi¬ 
anity from the ruthless lance of the eloquent agnostic 
find no redeeming features in the history of Catholi¬ 
cism? Could they not look back over the gulf of one , 
thousand years and see her moving like an angel of life 
amidst the dying embers of a lost civilization, preserv¬ 
ing the glories of Greece and Rome from the wreck 
wrought by the savage march of barbarous hordes? 
Could they not see her floating above the waves of de¬ 
struction that swept over the continent of Europe, 
soothing the fierce passions driven to desperation in 
the conflict of tribes and tongues and nations ? Could 
they not have given her credit for the discoveries she 
has made, the inventions she has formed, the light she 
has spread, the schools she has established? If these 
tributes were beyond their sense of justice, could they 


146 


The Two Kingdoms 


not have covered her faults with the robes of charity, 
and treated her history with silence ? 

There are some men, unfortunately, in the min¬ 
istry, that would rather writhe forever in the tenth 
circle of Dante’s hell, in company with Colonel Inger- 
soll, than to occupy a throne of glory, situated far away 
amidst purple fields of light, if there were the barest 
possibility of meeting the Pope of Rome in that land 
of joy. 

However, I do not indiscriminately condemn the 
Protestant clergy. I acknowledge that some of the 
best and greatest men in the world are to be found 
among our separated brethren in the sacred vocation 
of the ministry. If every Christian pulpit were filled 
with men like Dr. Washington Gladden, the triumph 
of religion would be the most remarkable feat in this 
age, and, ere long, the empire of the Savior would 
Xeach abroad into all the kingdoms of paganism, and 
the Church would grow like the mustard seed and 
spread its branches over the earth, and all nations 
would seek shelter within its fold. 

There are a few bigots in every denomination, who 
seem to derive more pleasure in aspersing the snowy 
brow of Christianity than in bolting the gates of hell. 
From time to time, I have heard importune, intemper¬ 
ate and uncharitable harangues from Catholic divines 
against Protestantism and its adherents, and I have 
said that these men are blind agents in the destruction 
of Christian peace, in the creation of that animosity 
which so often embitters the feelings existing among 
Christian peoples. 

There has been too much bigotry on both sides, 
and it has done irreparable injury to the cause of 
Christianity. Let Protestants and Catholics forget 
their ancient enmities, begotten more than three hun- 


The Two Kingdoms. 


H7 


drecl years ago, and unite in the bonds of fraternal 
love; let them obliterate the' lines of demarkation that 
have been drawn by our ancestors in the old world, 
and transplanted by their children to the western hemi¬ 
sphere ; let their charity be as broad as the charity of 
their Savior for the errors of humanity; let them con¬ 
solidate their ranks against infidelity and atheism, the 
common foes of the Church and the Bible, and the 
empire of Jesus will be extended to the wildest haunts 
of men, and become as world-wide as the race of 
Adam. 


148 


The Two Kingdoms. 


CHAPTER VI. 

LANGUOR AND INDIEEERENCE OE CHRISTIAN TEACHERS 
HAVE RESULTED IN GENERAL DEMORALIZATION. 
DIVORCE, PROSTITUTION, MURDERS, ROBBERY. IN¬ 
TEMPERANCE- DISPARITY BETWEEN RICH AND POOR. 
DISHONESTY OE POLITICIANS. CRIMES OE GOVERN¬ 
MENTS. OUR MILLIONAIRES NOT PATRIOTIC. 

T HE early ages of Christianity were remarkable 
for the apostolic zeal of its ministers. The con¬ 
version of the vast Roman Empire was accom¬ 
plished in three centuries by the herculean labors of 
men who were ever ready to die for their divine Mas¬ 
ter. But times have changed. Cowardice has sup¬ 
planted heroism, venality has taken the place of mag¬ 
nanimity, and the lofty purposes of the good and great 
have given way to the mercenary motives of the selfish. 

At the present day, when an ecclesiastical prefer¬ 
ment is offered to a clergyman, either Protestant or 
Catholic, as a rule, he little thinks of the souls whose 
salvation might be secured by his ministrations; but he 
considers well the magnitude and importance of the 
charge, and the pecuniary remuneration attached to 
the duties of the pastorate. 

How sordid are those motives! Did the Apostles 
make financial calculations before they departed from 
Jerusalem to conquer the pagan world? Did Peter 
weigh well the possibility of enhancing his Cathedra- 
ticum when he left Antioch for the Imperial City ? Did 
Paul take into consideration the temporal advantages 


The: Two Kingdoms. 149 

connected with his mission to Macedonia and Achaia ? 
Did Thorrfas and Bartholomew lay aside a certain sum 
every month for their declining years ? Did they col¬ 
lect their salary as if it were the ordinary reward for 
their labors? Did Simon and Jude spend a month 
at the seaside every summer at the expense of their 
neophytes ? 

These are the niQst weighty considerations with 
Christian clergymen at the present time in the accepta¬ 
tion of a new field of labor. This general apathy to 
the progress of Christianity on the part of the ministry 
has been instrumental in the demoralization of the age. 
Is the standard of morality as high as it was a century 
ago? Let us take this country as an illustration. Our 
male ancestors were satisfied with one wife, and our 
mothers were devoted to their husbands. Now, as a 
rule, the husband is unfaithful, having another com¬ 
panion down town, and not infrequently several: and 
if he be a traveling man, it is rather an ordinary occur¬ 
rence to keep a mistress in every important city in his 
route. Last summer I met a gentleman on the ship 
who seemed to think that virility and purity were as 
incompatible as light and darkness, and he told me 
that every man of means in New York kept a concu¬ 
bine. In reply to this bold statement I asked him how 
they could conceal these facts from their wives, and I 
was astonished to learn that the female companions 
are aware of these irregularities, but condone them as 
virile necessities. 

The same statement has been made of other cities, 
and our dark journalistic annals prove that conjugal 
infidelity is as common as the indiscretions of youth, 
and the latter are of daily occurrence. 

If you wish to get a correct idea of the moral 
degeneracy of this age and country, hold an hour’s 


The Two Kingdoms. 


150 

conversation with the men of the world, speak to the 
habitues of the theater, the sporting places, the club- 
room, the resorts of pleasure, the springs, and the sea¬ 
shore. A married man, unable to leave his business, 
sends his wife, whom he loves so tenderly, to Saratoga 
or Cape May or Atlantic City for a month in the sum¬ 
mer. She stops at one of the fashionable hotels. She 
is young, handsome and gay, and her arrival is 
marked by all the young men at the hotel, and soon 
she showers her favors on this host of admirers, or, at 
least, she selects one from the list, to whom no privi¬ 
lege is refused. This is high society. 

The poor man’s wife must remain at home, and 
her joys consist in administering to the requirements 
of her family. She is united with her little household 
by the dearest and strongest ties. Husband, wife and 
'babes smile and weep together, for their pleasures and 
their sorrows are mutual; and no crime ever soils the 
purity of the marriage bed. But how different is the 
moral sentiment of the wealthy and luxurious! Pleas¬ 
ure is their only divinity, and they do not scruple, 
when they have tasted all the legitimate joys that 
money, intellect and society can afford, to invade for¬ 
bidden fields and cull every fruit that blooms and 
grows upon the tree of lust. Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, 
in her essay before the Second Annual Meeting of the 
Free Religious Association, convened in Boston as 
early as 1869, thirty years ago, deplored the 
awful progress already made by the demon of lecherv 
in this fair and beautiful land of ours. With a pen full 
of irony and sarcasm this brilliant authoress scathes 
the ethics of the age. “The strangling of female in¬ 
fants will relieve the present excess of female popula¬ 
tion in New England and postpone the pressure of 
woman suffrage. The burning of widows alone will 


Thk Two Kingdoms. 


151 

save the country no small outlay of expenses. Lastly, 
since the Turkish ethics are coming so much into 
favor, I should advise a more than Mormon applica¬ 
tion of them in our midst. Co-operative housekeep¬ 
ing could then be begun on the most intimate and 
harmonious footing. And so we shall reconstruct 
and retransform, and true progress shall consist in 
regress.” 

“Free love establishments,” says Dr. Cook, “Fou- 
rierite phalanxes, and communities of various names, 
are allowed to flourish in the midst of our modern civil¬ 
ization. unmolested by the civil law, almost unscathed 
by public opinion.” (Satan in Society, p. 261.) 

Divorce is the order of the day, and marriage 
seems to possess no more sanctity than any other 
natural contract. The purposes of the young people 
are to live in harmony as long as agreeable to both 
parties, and separate when inducements of a more con¬ 
genial union are offered to either. In 1878 the sta¬ 
tistics of family disintegration in Vermont prove that 
the ratio of divorce to marriage was one to* thirteen. 
In Massachusetts it was one to fourteen : *'in Rhode 
Island and New Hampshire it was one to ten: in Con¬ 
necticut, one to eight, and in Maine about the same 
ratio prevailed. We are justified in averring that the 
moral condition of the United States at large is not 
higher than it is in the New England States. 

Divorce destroys the Christian idea of marriage, 
and when people are convinced that there are no sacred 
obligations connected with the nuptial bond, the ave¬ 
nue is open to every social crime. Greece and Rome, 
in the darkest age of their iniquity, and Egypt and 
Syria, when enveloped in the shadows of paganism, 
were not more cruel to unconscious infancy than the 
civilization of the nineteenth century. The parents 


152 The: Two Kingdoms. 

who offered their smiling babes upon the blood-stained 
altars of Moloch, are not more brutal than the parents 
of this Christian country, and the mothers who expose 
the fruit of their womb to perish on the shores of the 
Ganges, are not more heartless than the mothers of this 
enlightened age and this great progressive land. 

The famous Dr. Cook, after giving several cases 
of cruel infanticide, continues: “Numberless similar 
-instances are within the knowledge of physicians, and 
every practitioner of experience could add some dozens 
to the list. Not .all, nor any of the numerous essays 
and monographs, remonstrances and addresses re¬ 
cently put forth on the subject convey anything like an 
adequate idea of the enormous prevalence of child- 
murder. Let the reader ask the physicians of his ac¬ 
quaintance—they will verify our words. It is not a 
pleasant thought that the very audience before whom a 
preacher fulminates against the great crime of the 
nineteenth century, is so far sprinkled with criminals 
that he feels the powerlessness of his words. It is not 
a pleasant thought that the authors of the numerous 
treatises referred to, know that a mighty influence pre¬ 
vails in the culpable sentiment of the community, 
which shall neutralize their labors. ’The startling truth 
is, that, in what is termed ‘good society,’ both in the 
city and country, it is the exception, rather than the 
rule, to find among either ladies or gentlemen correct 
'Scriptural’ ideas on this subject.” (Satan in Society, 
p.122.) 

The author then expatiates on crimes of this na¬ 
ture, so prevalent among the Greeks, Persians, Medes, 
Canaanites, Babylonians, and other Oriental peoples, 
and speaks of the enormity of this vice among the 
Chinese at the present day. But after his scathing 
denunciation of the inhuman institutes of Plato and 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


*53 


Aristotle, which condemned to death, by exposure, all 
infants who were regarded as feeble, or who would not 
probably become efficient servants of the Republic; 
after censuring the brutality of the Athenian laws on 
this subject, and the atrocities of infanticide, legitim¬ 
ized by the acts of the Spartan legislature, the learned 
physician concludes with this stern arraignment of 
American morality: “It is humiliating to confess, as 
we stated in chapter first, that so boastful a nation as 
ours is becoming worse even than the pagans of old, 
but we reiterate the assertion with emphasis and we 
challenge contradiction/’ (Ibid, p. 131.) 

Dr. Cook quotes the authority of another eminent 
physician to sustain his views on this question. This 
writer condemns infanticide as murder of the darkest 
die. Moreover, he claims that it is not more sinful for 
the mother to strangle her new-born babe, or to dash 
the brains of her darling child against the wall, than to 
resort to the awful crime of feticide. But he says: 
“This crime is common. It is fearfully prevalent. 
Hundreds of persons in every one of our large cities 
are devoted to its perpetration. It is their trade. 
Those who submit to this treatment are not generally 
unmarried women, who have lost their virtue, but the 
mothers of families, respectable, Christian matrons, 
members of Church, and walking in the better class of 
society. Better, far better, to bear a child every year 
for twenty years, than to resort to such a wicked and 
injurious step; better to die, if needs be, in the pangs 
of childbirth, than to live with such a weight of sin on 
the conscience.” (Ibid, p. 26.) 

If the crimes of lawful wedlock are so appalling', 
what must be the moral status of those pursuing the 
path of single blessedness ? ** 


154 


The Two Kingdoms. 


We do not gainsay the fact that there are virgins 
to-day as there have been in ages long forgotten. We 
do not hesitate to say that there are many young men 
whose souls have never been tarnished by the breath of 
lust. Nevertheless, these spotless celibates are excep¬ 
tions to the general rule. The mass is infected with 
the leaven of lewdness. Libidinous desires and carnal 
gratification haunt the visions of our youth. Show me 
a pure young man and I will show you ten that are 
victims of profligacy. For every unsullied maiden 
there are two who are slaves to lascivious pleasures. 
The roue is the natural product of this age, and every 
incentive is lent to inflame his passions, and no re¬ 
straints are called into requisition to neutralize the 
tendency of evil associations. The precocity of Amer¬ 
ican children is astonishing, and our club-rooms are 
schools of debauchery. 

Joseph Waddell Clokey writes “that it is a dread¬ 
ful comment on the so-called modesty of the Christian 
world, that its magazines, newspapers and pulpits have 
been almost silent on the so-called social vices. Hush ! 
Hush ! the refined have cried at every public reference 
to them, till licentiousness has well-nigh undermined 
our social fabric.” \ 

Evangelist George F. Hall says that “We are, as 
a nation, becoming shamefully unchaste. Sins that 
shocked our forefathers, and called forth the severest 
condemnation, are now winked at in average social 
circles. Adulteries, fornications and kindred crimes 
are more common in America to-day than ever be¬ 
fore/’ (Plain Points on Personal Purity, p. 144.) 

The authority of Professor H. I. Bryant supports 
this opinion. The learned lecturer says in speaking- 
on social purity: “What means this lamentation over 
the decay of morals and virtue? Bishops and sages 


The Two Kingdoms. 155 

tell us they are waning. Is it true? If ever there was 
a time in the history of any country when the moral 
tide was lower, may God pity the generation of that 
time. They work more successful schemes on young 
and innocent girls than in any other age of the world 
—more cunning and artful. Seducing women is now 
a studied art among libertines; and it is pursued by 
more students than any other branch of science or 
literature. It has more graduates than any depart¬ 
ment of all our institutions of learning, and they are 
more successful in their chosen profession. Women 
are not always guiltless. Almost every city has its 
bawdy houses, and many of them, hundreds. They 
have their thousands of inmates many of whom are 
girls between eight and twelve years old. Nor is this 
public life of shame the fullest extent of this crime. 
It is to be found in all classes of society. Among men 
it is the general rule, to which the virtuous are excep¬ 
tions ; among women it is wonderfully common. I 
would not unveil the secrets of their hearts. I would 
to God that the world did not know so much of their 
sin as it does. But their stories have oft been told. 
The late Bishop Burrows, of London, England, ex¬ 
poses this sin with others, in the wealthy church of 
which he was pastor, and he said: ‘There are ladies 
whose faces I see here to-night with whom no decent 
tradesman's wife or daughter would associate.’ The 
time has come when we must deal with this subject 
specifically. We can smother the truth no longer; 
cold-blooded facts stare us in the face. Something 
must be done to check this tide of sin that sweeps us 
down toward hell, or we shall be entombed in its awful 
gulf. This sad state of affairs exists to-dav in more 
churches than are to be found in the world’s metropo¬ 
lis. The crime of adultery is common, and is said to be 
on the increase.” (Ibid, p. 145.) 


The Two Kingdoms. 


156 

The public crime of prostitution is so prevalent 
that a respectable man must be very prudent about 
forming’ acquaintances with ladies, unless they are 
known to be above reproach. New York is supposed 
to contain fifty thousand disreputable women, besides 
a vast number whose characters are dubious. Dr. 
Cook says that there is but one thing more astonishing 
than the ordinary spectacle of a woman selling her 
body to all the horrors of lust, and it is the fact that 
there are purchasers. “The mystery exists, however. 
It numbers untold thousands of the former, and un¬ 
told millions of the latter. Its increase is so alarm¬ 
ingly rapid that the attention of philanthropists and 
legislators has been forcibly drawn to the subject, and 
public meetings are being held all over the country, 
and the wildest schemes promulgated, each claiming 
to be the grand specific for this horrible plague-spot on 
our body social.” (Satan in Society, p. 372.) 

Murder, theft, robbery, burglary, and all other 
crimes, are making strides in this country, and if some 
mighty reformation does not begin to purify the mor¬ 
als of America, we are destined to become a nation of 
criminals. Dishonesty is rife in every land and the 
man who pays his debt» is considered as verdant as 
the mother of a large family. 

What is the cause of this mighty array of iniquity ? 
I hear some enthusiast say that the vices of the age 
can be attributed to illiteracy, and when we have com¬ 
pulsory education, with our magnificent system of 
public schools, crime will wane, and virtue will tri¬ 
umph, and the Government will rejoice in the loyalty 
of her citizens, in the fidelity of her men, and the pur¬ 
ity of her women. The unanimous testimony of the 
medical profession attests the sad truth that violations 
of connubial faith, disintegration of family ties, the 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


157 


breaking of domestic bonds, the thwarting of nature’s 
intention in the nuptial union, and all the long cata¬ 
logue of dark crimes connected with the loss of matri¬ 
monial sanctity, are vastly more prevalent among the 
educated, wealthy class of people than among the poor 
and ignorant. Statistics prove that other crimes have 
kept pace with the progress of learning, and there are 
more culprits among the educated than among the illit¬ 
erate. The United States Census Bulletin for May 
6th, 1892, discloses the startling fact, that, from a 
list of more than eighty-two thousand prisoners in this 
country, there were seven thousand, three hundred and 
eighty-six homicides, and of these homicides, sixty-one 
per cent, could read and write, and only thirty-three 
per cent, were totally ignorant of letters. 

Mulhall’s Dictionary of Statistics gives the fol¬ 
lowing figures: In England and Wales, sixty-eight 
per cent, of the criminals could read, and thirty-three 
per cent, were ignorant. In Ireland; seventy per cent, 
of the criminals were able to read, and thirty per cent, 
could not. The report of Sing Sing Prison in New 
York State, for 1890 gives one thousand, five hundred 
and fifty-three prisoners, of whom one thousand, four 
hundred and twenty were educated, and one hundred 
and thirty-three illiterate. Auburn Prison reports for' 
the same year one thousand and twenty-five educated, 
and one hundred and twenty-six uneducated prisoners. 
The Clinton Prison report gives seven hundred and 
eleven educated and ninety-three illiterates. The State 
of California had eleven hundred and fifty-two edu¬ 
cated and two hundred and forty illiterate criminals. 
Out of five hundred and twenty-seven prisoners re¬ 
ceived in the Philadelphia State Penitentiary, there 
were four hundred and sixtv-two educated. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


158 

In 1891 there were four hundred and forty-six 
prisoners received in the same prison, and four hun¬ 
dred and three were educated; and in 1892 there were 
four hundred and seventy-four prisoners received, and 
four hundred and eighteen were educated. The Pres¬ 
ident of the Board of Directors of this prison says that 
‘'Crimes of education, that recpiire intellectual training 
to commit, are assuming new phases and are increas- 

ing ” 

The above figures, taken from the work of Alfred 
Young, show that education does not diminish the fre¬ 
quency of crime. The following table from the same 
authority, containing the number of prisoners re¬ 
ceived in the Pennsylvania State Penitentiary be¬ 
tween 1828 and 1893, is very convincing: Total con¬ 
victs received, 17,224; convicted of crimes against 
property, 13,919. Of these the illiterates were 2,230. 
Those that could not read, only 922. Those that 
could read and write, 10,767. These statistics prove 
that the number of illiterate criminals stand in the ratio 
of one to five in every case, and quite frequently in the 
ratio of one to eight, to the educated criminals. 

Who will dare say that education has been instru¬ 
mental in the diminution of crime? I do not pretend 
to charge the reign of enlightenment with this train 
of evils, for every thoughtful mind must recognize the 
potency of mental development in the amelioration of 
domestic and public morality. But intellectual ad¬ 
vancement is only one factor in the progressive move¬ 
ment of civilization, and unless it be directed with a 
view to the ultimate end of man, and sanctified with 
the hallowing influence of religion, it may become dis¬ 
astrous to the weal of society. 

Look at ancient Rome before the time of Christ! 
She had great men. learned in all the wisdom of the 


The: Two Kingdoms. 159 

world, and yet that proud capital, whose authority was 
recognized from the rocks of Britain to the valley of 
the Jordan, was the cesspool of corruption, the throne 
of iniquity. The eagles of the Imperial City had 
perched upon every shore, and the sword of the Roman 
conqueror had shed the blood of every nation. The 
vices of distant lands were gathered, like trophies of 
war, and wreathed in purple robes to deck the regal 
hall. 

I walked among the ruins of those ancient palaces, 
the blood-stained palaces of the Caesars, and I went 
back in my reflections to the time when sacrifice 
burned in the temple of Jupiter Victor, and I called 
forth from the silent dust the vision of Roman Em¬ 
perors who made those crumbling walls resound with 
the unhallowed mirth of midnight orgies. I repeopled 
those vast halls, those desolate ruins; I summoned, 
from the tomb of ages, the shades of those illustrious 
men, who sat at the festal board of Tiberius and Cali¬ 
gula, the tablinum where the ancient emperors enter¬ 
tained their guests. Standing on the Palatine hill, I 
looked down on the valley, and I beheld the gigantic 
Colosseum, which was erected by Vespasian for the 
public games. It could contain eighty-seven thousand 
spectators. It was there that the elite of polished 
pagan Rome assembled to revel in blood. The Ro¬ 
man heart was not satisfied with the ordinary theatrical 
performance. It loathed the gentle pleasures of re¬ 
fined taste. It rejoiced in gladiatorial contests, in the 
struggle of men and beasts on the arena. Tigers were 
brought from the wilds of Asia, fierce lions from the 
jungles of Africa, Molossian dogs from the mountains 
of Greece, to augment the bloody spectacles of the 
amphitheater, and pander to the bestial instincts of 
pagan Rome. 


i6o 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


But the blood of wild animals did not satisfy the 
cruel heart of that godless people. Their greatest 
pleasure was derived from sights of human suffering. 
To behold man meeting man in deadly conflict, to see 
the carnivorous beasts tearing out the human heart, 
palpitating with the flow of the life current, to gaze 
upon helpless infancy in the jaws of the enraged 
tiger, and to hear the lion breaking the fragile limbs of 
delicate women, was rapture to the refined ladies of 
that corrupt age. 

I have strolled among the ruins of that great city, 
and I saw visions of her past glory and her shame. I 
pictured myself Nero playing the harp while the city 
was in flames. I rebuilt in fancy his golden palace, 
and called forth from the silent centuries his grand 
equipage of a thousand carriages, with a proportion¬ 
ate number of attendants, and I thought of the im¬ 
mense sums of money annually spent in supporting the 
bestial proclivities of the Caesar. I reflected upon the 
fact, that, while Nero impoverished the Empire with 
his costly entertainments, his extravagant pleasures, 
his peculiar and idiotic fancies, he was insanely fond 
of his monkey, and gave it large possessions in the 
country, with handsome dwellings in the city. I 
clothed the skeletons of history with the robes of living 
flesh, and I stood face to face with the men who im¬ 
personated the crimes of heathen Rome, and I said 
that it is not surprising that the City of the Tiber fell 
beneath the hoof of the Northman’s battle steed. 

The status of woman is the criterion of civiliza¬ 
tion. Where woman is honored, where ,wives are 
loved, and mothers respected, where the gentle female 
presides at the domestic board, like a household divin¬ 
ity, and sends the sunshine of joy into every heart that 
dwells beneath the parental roof, then the star of civil- 


The; Two Kingdoms. 161 

ization is in the ascendant, and the hope of the nation 
is filled with visions of glory. Woman is the angel of 
peace, love and purity, the essential characteristics of 
the noblest type of civilization. Woman is the incar¬ 
nation of refinement, and she ever stands on the dis¬ 
tant horizon, leading the world into fields of purest 
joy, directing the impulses of men, elevating their as¬ 
pirations to higher and nobler purposes, rendering 
earth the abode of peace and love, softening, with her 
smiles, the asperities of life, illuminating the path of 
darkness with the light of hope, relieving the broken¬ 
hearted and desolate of their burdens. 

What was the condition of woman in the golden 
days of- Roman supremacy? Base and servile. She 
was the property of her master, whether that master 
was her father or husband. Born a child of subjec¬ 
tion, from the cradle to the tomb, she was the slave 
to the will of another. Her father had absolute do¬ 
minion over her, and in the tender years of infancy he 
could sell her, banish her from the domestic hearth, 
expose her to the fury of wild beasts, or dispose of her 
life with the sword. When she became a wife, she 
merely passed from one state of bondage to another. 
Having no rights of her own, she was the chattel of 
her proprietor, who had complete dominion over her 
acts, her person and her life. 

Let us leave the shores of the Tiber and wander 
to the mountains of Greece, where the harp of the 
muse is touched by the breath of the wind, and mingles 
with the voice of the waves. O Hellas! Land of 
sages and heroes, hallowed by the sacred memories 
that cluster around thy fountains and glide along thy 
streams; consecrated by the voice of Apollo, whose 
lyre filled the lonely dell with echoes weird and dim, 
and charmed the rocks of wild Parnassus with the 


162 


The Two Kingdoms 


magic of its sound, and tamed the savage beasts, that 
climbed the craggy heights, and held the world en¬ 
tranced around Castalia’s silvery spring, that nestled 
in the shade of Helicon. O land of genius and art, 
land of temples .and shrines, home of learning and 
school of eloquence, the focus of ancient civilization, 
what has thou done for woman ? Hast thou broken 
the manacles from her limbs? Hast thou clothed her 
in the raiment of glory, and made her the deity of the 
household, and consecrated the hearth to her enno¬ 
bling genius? Hast thou dignified her sphere of ac¬ 
tion and honored, with becoming reverence, the state 
of maid, wife and mother ? Alas, no ! The courtesan 
was the. idol of all the great men of Greece. 

“It was Phryne who inspired the chisel of Praxit¬ 
eles. Transformed into a goddess, the courtesan re¬ 
ceived, upon the altars of Greece, the prayers and in¬ 
cense of worship. Cotytto had her altars at Athens 
and Corinth under the title of Popular Venus; Aspa- 
sia decided upon peace or war, directing the councils 
of Pericles. Glycera was immortalized by the paint¬ 
ers of Sycion. Demosthenes—fiery tribune of the 
people—cast himself at the feet of Lais.” A common 
strumpet seduced by her charms the famous Areo¬ 
pagus when brought before that learned body to be 
tried for her revolting immodesties. 

This was the state of morality during the golden 
period in the history of Greek civilization. The pub¬ 
lic prostitute was honored with every mark of esteem, 
glorified by the greatest ilien in the land, apotheosized 
and placed in the temples of Greece, on altars conse¬ 
crated to the gods, and there she received the homage 
of Grecian genius, the sacrifice of the Grecian, priest¬ 
hood, amidst the wealth and pageantry of Grecian 
glory. But the legitimate wife and devoted mother, 


The Two Kingdoms. 


163 


the source of all the grandeur of Greek civilization, 
the valor of her heroes, the eloquence of her orators, 
the wisdom of her statesmen, the visions of her poets, 
the inspiration of her sculptors, and the genius of her 
painters; the wife and mother, the guardian of home,, 
the angel of purity, the parent of every domestic 
charm and every social virtue, was dishonored, ig¬ 
nored, enslaved, kept in a state of isolation, deprived 
of education, and valued only because she pandered 
to the passions of man and gave children to the Re¬ 
public. 

If we leave Greece and visit Egypt, shall we find 
a different code of morals? “Among the Egyptians,” 
says Dr. Cook, “so renowned for wisdom, polygamy 
was prohibited only to the priests. Marriages be¬ 
tween brothers and sisters were freely allowed. In 
public processions, the most gross and impure em¬ 
blems were ostentatiously paraded. Animals the 
most lecherous were adored as divinities. Practices 
too indecent for recital, too horrible to believe possible, 
were of constant and public occurrence. The Phoeni¬ 
cians, the Armenians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, 
the Carthagenians, the Medes and Persians, the Thra¬ 
cians, all had laws and customs relating to woman too 
revolting and indecent even to mention. The most in¬ 
nocent of these was the burying of the living widow 
with the body of the dead husband, the sale of a wo¬ 
man for a pair of oxen. Throughout Asia the same 
abominations were, and in many places are still, custo¬ 
mary. Polygamy, the purchase of women, their en¬ 
slavement, are things no less of to-day than of anti¬ 
quity. But that which, above all, proves to what ab¬ 
jection woman, deprived of Christianity, can fall, how 
completely her heart can become debased, her most 
natural sentiments abolished, is that throughout, from 


164 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


the Red Sea to the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates, 
from the shores of Asia Minor to the depths of India, 
the stones of the altar are bathed with human blood; 
the idols devour the quivering flesh of infants offered 
in sacrifice.” 

Education without Christianity is no barrier 
against the tide of iniquity that threatens to sweep 
away the civilization that has been planted in this land 
by the toil and sweat and blood of the pioneers who 
came here to seek an asylum from the despotism of 
the Old World. 

Christianity is waning in this country; the warn¬ 
ing words of the prophecies are scorned; the Bible is 
ignored, and the Church is ridiculed. What will be¬ 
come of our youth? What will become of American 
manhood and womanhood ? What will become of the 
next generation, heir to all the evil tendencies of this 
age? Rev. George F. Hall says that “it has been esti¬ 
mated that seventy-five per cent, of the young men of 
this country do not darken a church door from one 
month’s end to another, and only five per cent, are 
professing Christians.” 

Let the ministry of the land raise its voice against 
these evils. Let the learning of the ministry defend 
the Bible and make its holy inspirations the basis upon 
which to begin the warfare .against the crimes that 
proudly stalk th£ land and flaunt their colors on every 
street and alley of our large cities, in every village and 
hamlet on the quiet country roadside. Let unity of 
action be their motto, and God and Victory be their 
battle-cry. 

Another great evil of the age. is intemperance. It 
is found in all ranks, and infests every nation. The 
Frenchman drinks his wine, the German drinks his 
beer, the Englishman drinks his ale, the Celt drinks 
his whisky, and the American drinks them all. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


165 

There is no vice more widespread and disastrous 
in its consequences than the vice of intemperance. 
Let 11s go in fancy to the world’s bloody battlefields, 
where millions have perished at the point of the sword; 
let us visit the home of the dead hero who lies beneath 
the blue of heaven with his face turned to the silent 
stars; let us count the widow’s tears and listen to her 
sobs and wails, mingled with the wild, grief-stricken, 
lamentations of her desolate family, and we must admit 
that the victories of the war-god are not more numer¬ 
ous than the victories of rum; and the sorrows of the 
soldier’s widow are light compared to the w*oe of the 
drunkard’s wife. 

There is no sorrow 7 in the world like the sorrow of 
the drunkard’s home. I go back in fancy’s rapid flight 
to the remotest age of authentic history, and I accumu¬ 
late all the pangs of grief that ever pressed on a human 
soul; I take the bleeding heart of Israel wflien she wan¬ 
dered over the bleak wastes of Egypt to the shores of 
the Red Sea, pursued bv the standing army of the 
kingdom; I see the children of Abraham on the sandy 
desert of Arabia, w r eeping because they had not been 
massacred in the land of bondage. I hear them crying 
for bread to feed their hunger, and asking for water 
to slake their thirst while wandering in the wilderness; 
I see them without a home resting in the purple sheen 
of heaven, pitching their tents beneath the smiling 
stars. I look at God’s chosen people in their pros¬ 
perity, when, forgetting the beneficence of their Crea¬ 
tor, they w r ere slaughtered by the giants whom heaven 
had armed with vengeance to punish the crimes of a 
guilty nation; and I say there is no sorrow like unto 
the sorrow of a drunkard’s home. 

I hear the cry of the innocents that fell beneath 
the shining blade of Herod, and I see the heaving 


The Two Kingdoms. 


i 66 

bosoms of mothers, pouring out their sighs over the 
cruel massacre of their cooing babes; I see the city of 
Zion surrounded by the Roman legions, and the pro¬ 
phecy of Christ accomplished in the destruction of the 
temple, the pride and the hope and the glory of the 
nation, and the last tribes of Israel dispersed like their 
brethren after the Babylonian captivity. I hear the 
wail of Judea echoing through the centuries, calling 
upon Jehovah of old, the God of her fathers, who 
strengthened the arm of Moses and gave power to the 
rod of Aaron, to deliver her from the weeds of mourn¬ 
ing and restore her altar, sacrifice and priesthood; and 
I say that there is no sorrow like unto the sorrow of 
the drunkard’s home. 

I hear the voice of Erin’s sons pleading for the 
rights of their country ; I hear the mothers of Wexforcl 
pleading for the lives of their children ; I see the march 
of Cromwell through the land which was a 
smiling meadow before him, a desolate waste be¬ 
hind him; I hear the last dying groan of the Celt in 
the trenches of Cork and among the mountains of 
Kerry; and I say there is no sorrow like unto the sor¬ 
row of the drunkard’s home. 

I summon up-all the victories of Napoleon; I 
behold the conqueror of nations at Lodi and Marengo, 
at Jena and Austerlitz; I gaze upon him in his march 
over the sands of the Nile, and amidst the glory of 
triumph in the battle of the pyramids. I see his dis¬ 
aster at Moscow, and his magnificent army perishing 
amidst tlie snows of Russia, and the sad end of his 
unparalleled career in the defeat of Waterloo; I see 
him in his exile upon a solitary island amidst the waves 
of the South Atlantic; I see him standing at the win¬ 
dow of his lonely cell looking out upon the foaming 
surge that beats against the jutting rocks, chanting the 


The Two Kingdoms. 


167 


mournful dirge of his political glory; and I say that 
there is no sorrow like unto the sorrow of the drunk¬ 
ard’s home. 

Go into that desolate abode, and you hear the sobs 
and sighs of agony, the overflowing of grief-stricken 
hearts, the wailing of forlorn souls deprived of every 
joy, bereft of every hope. It is more pitiful than the 
lamentations of Jeremiah over the dispersion of Israel 
and the desolation of her temple. By the dim light of 
the flickering flame that seems to weep over the sor¬ 
rows of that home and mingle its tears with the tears of 
the lonely inmates; by the glimmering light of the 
waning fire, you behold a pale-faced woman and sev¬ 
eral little children. Upon her brow is the furrow of 
care, and .her silvery tresses would indicate that she is 
far advanced down the valley of years. But you learn 
that she is a mother of less than two score summers, 
yet the hand of sorrow has hastened the sun of her 
life, and the shadow of age reaches out to the border 
of the mystic land. Listen, friends; listen to her tale 
of woe, as she faintly whispers the story of her life 
in the ear of the welcome intruder who has come to 
break the monotony of her sobs and sighs that escape 
between intermittent floods of tears. She was an only 
daughter, the idol of devoted parents, and being the 
sole heir to vast wealth, she was given every advantage 
of education, and prepared to shine in the intellectual 
and social world. Her smiles were wooed by all, and 
her hand was sought by the best young men in the 
community. There was one more favored than the 
rest because he seemed to be so true and so noble. She 
lavished her affections upon him, and felt that they 
were not misplaced Mutual revelations were made, 
followed by an engagement, and the nuptial day ar¬ 
rived. Decked in the flowers of May, emblematic of 


The Two Kingdoms. 


i 68 

her evanescent joys, the youthful bride give's her heart 
and her hand to her gallant Romeo. 

A few short years of wedded bliss roll away, and 
promises of a happy, glorious future are blighted by 
the incipient habit of drink. The plighted faith is 
broken; the solemn words of union are forgotten; the 
whilom lover is no more. He has exchanged the pure 
joys of conjugal affection, the rapture of the nuptial 
kiss, for the inebriating pleasures of the banqueting 
hall, the bestial gratifications of bacchanalian ex¬ 
cesses. His wealth is wasted; his credit is destroyed; 
his house is mortgaged; his home is wrecked: his 
family are hungry and naked, while the demon of in¬ 
temperance marches on, carrying the young debauchee 
along the road to hell. 

The brilliant temperance advocate, J. H. Moore, 
writes that if you wish to know the cost of rum, do not 
count it in solid gold, but count it in the deeds of 
shame and infamy that follow the wake of the drunk¬ 
ard. “Intemperance cuts down youth in its vigor, 
manhood in its strength, and age in its weakness. It 
breaks the father’s heart, bereaves the doting mother, 
extinguishes natural affections, erases conjugal love, 
blots out filial attachments, and blasts parental hopes, 
and brings down mourning age in sorrow to the grave. 
It produces weakness, not strength; sickness, not 
health ; death, not life. It makes wives, widows; chil¬ 
dren, orphans; fathers, fiends; and all of these paupers 
and beggars. It feeds rheumatism, nurses gout, wel¬ 
comes epidemics, invites cholera, imparts pestilence, 
and embraces consumption. It covers the land with 
idleness, misery and crime. It fills your jails, sup¬ 
plies your almshouses, and demands your asylums. 
It engenders controversies, fosters quarrels, and cher¬ 
ishes riots. It crowds your penitentiaries and fur- 


The Two Kingdoms. 


169 


nishes victims to your scaffolds. It is the life-blood of 
the gambler, the element of the burglar, the prop of 
the highwayman, and the support of the midnight in¬ 
cendiary. It countenances the liar, respects the thief, 
esteems the blasphemer. It violates obligations, rev¬ 
erences frauds, honors infamy. It defames benevo¬ 
lence, hates love, .scorns virtue, and slanders innocence. 
It incites the father to butcher his helpless offspring, 
helps the husband to murder his wife, and the child to 
grind the parricidal axe. It burns up men, consumes 
women, detests life, curses God, and despises heaven. 
It suborns witnesses, nurses perjury, defiles the jury- 
box, and stains the judicial ermine. It degrades the 
citizen, debases the legislator, dishonors the statesman, 
and disarms the patriot. It brings shame, not honor; 
terror, not safety; despair, not hope; misery, not hap¬ 
piness; and with the malevolence of a fiend it calmly 
surveys its frightful desolation, and unsatisfied with its 
havoc, it poisons felicity, kills peace, ruins morals, 
blights confidence, slays reputation, and wipes out na¬ 
tional honor; then curses the world and laughs at its 
ruin. It does all that and more—it murders the soul! 
It is the sum of all villainies, the father of all crimes, 
the mother of all abominations, the Devil’s best friend, 
and God’s worst enemy.” 

And this is the crowning evil of the nineteenth 
century. Like a mighty python it stretches across this 
broad land from ocean to ocean, and gathers into its 
coils every age and class. It prevails among the poor t 
it is the favorite vice of the wealthy; it sits upon the 
couch of luxury; it invades the palace and tarnishes the 
throne. It infests childhood and womanhood. It cor¬ 
rupts youth and disfigures the face of beauty. 3 

And yet, with this vast catalogue of evils, impur¬ 
ity, intemperance, theft, robbery, murder, and a host 


The Two Kingdoms. 


170 

of other nameless crimes, the superficial observer, 
building thrones of glory amid the glittering stars, 
waiting for the aurora of a new age, when the face of 
earth will be adorned with every virtue, vainly boasts 
that the blush of the golden morn can be seen bursting 
through the clouds that drape the portals of the 
Orient. 

Is there a single indication of the Millennium 
amidst the signs of the times? Alas! we must say, no. 
Indeed, the iniquities of the age would seem to'betoken 
the proximity of Anti-Christ. For in those days the 
great Apostle warns 11s that “Men shall be lovers of 
themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemous, 
disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without af¬ 
fection, without peace, slanderous, incontinent, un¬ 
merciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, puffed 
up, and lovers of pleasure more than of God, having 
an appearance, indeed, of piety, but denying the power 
thereof.” (2 Tim. 3.) 

Were men ever more addicted to those vices than 
they are at the present time? To-day, the world is 
without piety, without faith, without charity, without 
mercy, without honor, without honesty, without affec¬ 
tion, without sincerity, without truth, without fidelity, 
without kindness, without pity. The society of this 
age is rotten to the core, and the social heroes and 
heroines of our country are sunk in bestial lust, devoid 
of modesty, shame, continency. The heart of Amer¬ 
ican aristocracy is gangrened with the poison of every 
vice, loathsome with the stench of every crime, alive 
with the worms of putrefaction, a moving mass of 
moral purulence. 

While the exclusive set of our national metropolis 
are spending millions annually in gaming and sporting, 
in the saloon and the ball-room, in fetes and teas, and 


Thp; Two Kingdoms. 


171 

all the other requirements of the four hundred, pauper¬ 
ism stalks the land and beggary throngs the streets. 
It is an old saying, but true in its application*to this 
country, that the rich are becoming richer and the poor 
are becoming poorer. It is impossible for the genius 
of any man to rise from the condition of a pauper to a 
multi-millionaire in the course of a quarter or a half of 
a century. And yet how many illustrations of this 
apparent impossibility has this nation given within the 
present generation! Senator Farwell began life as a 
surveyor. Cornelius Vanderbilt was a farmer in his 
youth. A. T. Stewart began his career as a peda¬ 
gogue. Wanamaker’s first salary was one dollar and 
twenty-five cents a week. Pulitzer acted as stoker on 
a steamboat plying on the Mississippi River. David 
Sinton was engaged in a grocery store for one dollar 
a week. Keene drove a milk wagon. J. C. Flood was 
a saloonist. Cyrus Field was a clerk in a store. Bald¬ 
win worked on a farm in Indiana. George W. Childs 
was an errand boy for a book-seller on the small salary 
of four dollars a month, while Moses Taylor earned 
two dollars a week as a clerk in a New York store. 

Jay Gould canvassed Delaware County, New 
York, selling maps at a dollar and fifty cents each. 
Senator Brown made, his first money by plowing. 
Adam Forepaugh began life as a butcher, and White- 
law Reid was an ordinary journalist, commanding a 
salary of five dollars a week. C. P. Huntington dealt 
in butter and eggs, and Andrew Carnegie was a mes¬ 
senger boy in a Pittsburg telegraph office. 

In 1890 the wealth of Carnegie was estimated at 
forty millions. The fortune of Cornelius Vanderbilt 
was valued at one hundred and ten millions. C. P. 
Huntington was rated at forty millions. David Sinton 
was rated at twenty millions: Wanamaker at fifteen 


172 


The Two Kingdoms. 


millions. George W. Childs at fifteen millions, and 
Jay Gould at seventy-five millions. 

Henry George says that these vast fortunes are 
not the result of industry, or the application of genius', 
but the legitimate product of monopoly, appropriation 
and spoliation. Monopoly is nothing but a legalized 
system of robbery, and the government that will per¬ 
mit such monsters to bathe in the life-blood of the 
toiling millions and devour the heart of the nation, is 
criminal before God. 

“Take the great Vanderbilt fortune. The first 
Vanderbilt was a boatman who earned money by hard 
work, and saved it. But it was not working and saving 
that enabled him to leave such an enormous fortune. 
It was spoliation and monopoly. And as soon as he 
got money enough, he used it as a club to extract from 
others their earnings. The Vanderbilt fortune no 
more comes from working and saving than did the for¬ 
tune that Captain Kidd buried. Or take the great 
Gould fortune. Mr. Gould might have got his little 
start by superior industry and superior self-denial. 
But it is not that which has made him the master of a 
hundred millions. It was by wrecking railroads, get¬ 
ting up rings and pools, and cQmbinations to raise or 
depress stock values and transportation rates. So 
likewise the great fortunes which the Pacific railroads 
harvested. They have been made by lobbying through 
profligate donations of lands, bonds and subsidies, by 
monopolizing and gouging.” (Henry George, Social 
Problems, pp. 63, 64.) 

The great socialist, speaking of the servile condi¬ 
tion of the laboring class in this country, writes: “We 
have not abolished slavery; we never can abolish slav¬ 
ery, until we honestly accept the fundamental truth, as¬ 
serted by the Declaration of Independence, and secure 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


173 


to all the equal and unalienable rights with which they 
were endowed by their Creator. If we can not or will 
not do that, then, as a matter of humanity and social 
stability, it might be well, would it avail, to consider 
whether it were not wise to amend the constitution 
and permit poor whites and blacks alike to sell them¬ 
selves and their children to good masters. Suppose 
we did legalize chattel slavery again, who would buy 
men when men can be hired so cheaply?” (Ibid, p. 

173) 

It is something worthy of reflection that the divi¬ 
dends of the great corporations increase in magnitude 
just in proportion to the diminution of the wages of 
the laboring classes who toil for these gigantic con¬ 
cerns. Henry George denouncing the aristocracy of 
Europe makes a sad comment on American legislation 
when he claims that this country suffers more from the 
monopolists than England from her titled nobility; 
and as an antidote to the ever-increasing ills with 
, which the vast corporations afflict our land, he sug¬ 
gests that the government compromise with these 
mighty magnates, creating dukedoms for them on the 
condition that they do not molest the peace of the 
millions by their cruel usurpations. It would be far 
better, in the opinion of this author on political econ¬ 
omy, to have the Duke of New York, the Earl of Bos¬ 
ton, and the Baronet of Philadelphia, than the pesti¬ 
ferous monopolists, who, under the name of legitimate 
business, fill their maws with the blood of the toiling 
masses. 

And what is the condition of American politics? 
The malodor of its putridity nauseates every honest 
man in the kingdom. Every party is inoculated with 
the virus of political corruption. The disclosures that 
are made from time to time are startling. Look at 


174 


The Two Kingdoms. 


the revelations that shocked the city of New York 
when Tammany Hall was dethroned a few years ago 1 
The people said throughout the land that the reign of 
that political club was closed forever. But at the next 
election Tammany was reinstated. What accomplished 
such a vast and sweeping change in the sentiment of 
New York’s voters? They discovered that the new 
party was more corrupt than the old, and that Tam¬ 
many, with all its egregious faults, with its perfect sys¬ 
tem of taxation, with its schedule of tariff for every 
vice, nevertheless gave New York City the best gov¬ 
ernment it ever had. 

The history of politics' in the metropolis of the 
Empire State is but the history of every municipal 
government in this country. Bribery is the order of 
the day, and every public official has his price. It is 
not surprising that four thousand millionaires have 
been created in the United States in the last quarter 
of a century. 

Where is American patriotism? A man that will 
sell his honor, his word, his vote for paltry pelf, will 
barter his country’s glory in the hour of her deepest 
peril. America is ruled by the money power, and the 
millionaires of this country despise the land of their 
birth. Having robbed till their coffers are swollen 
with the fruit of their dishonesty, they go to England 
to seek husbands and wives for their daughters and 
sons. An American girl would gladly give her hand 
and heart to a titled vagrant rather than obscure the 
splendor of her life in conjugal union with America’s 
noblest son. There should be a law enacted forbidding 
such marriages under penalty of confiscation of all the 
property possessed by the delinquents in this country, 
and perpetual ostracism from these shores, with the 
further penalty of being suspended to the first lamp- 


The Two Kingdoms. 


175 

post in case the slightest attempt were ever made to 
return. 

The last few years I have devoted some time to 
the study of evolution, and daily experience seems to 
confirm the views of Darwin on the theory of the sur¬ 
vival of the fittest. A few months ago, while in a 
ruminating mood, I began to reflect upon the habits of 
brutes and the total disregard of justice and the rights 
of individuals of their species. Throw an ear of corn 
to a drove bi hungry swine, and you will be surprised 
to see the struggle to gain possession of the prize, and 
you will notice that the largest and most pugnacious 
member of the herd will always triumph in the contest. 
The eagle preys upon the dove; the hawk feeds upon 
the flesh of fowl; the shark follows the course of the 
ship across the main to seize upon human lives, cast 
upon the waves in the clash of mighty storms and in 
the wreck of armed vessels in the fury of the deadly 
strife. The stronger species preys upon the blood of 
the weaker, and the larger animals live upon the flesh 
of the smaller. 

In the human family this same fatal struggle is 
apparent. The rich live upon the sweat of the poor; 
the strong crush out the lives of the weak. This con¬ 
flict is not confined to individuals, but its dismal effects 
are seen in the history of nations. The legislation of 
every land protects its citizens from the knife of the 
desperado, from the blade of the assassin, from the 
tyranny of the lawless brute. Yet nation will rise 
against nation for the slightest cause, and the darkest 
crimes are clothed with a sanctity which it would be 
sacrilegious to mention without the greatest rever¬ 
ence. Look abroad upon the bloody battlefield; see 
the flower of youth weltering in the crimson wave; 
behold the polished sword glittering in the sheen of 


176 


The Two Kingdoms. 


heaven, and the life of nations perishing on its point; 
gaze upon the smoking ruins where the god of battles 
has cast his firebrand; listen to the boom of the can¬ 
non as it echoes through the forest glades and among 
the mountain rocks; hearken to the wailing of widows 
and orphans, who have lost their dearest friends, their 
only joy, their solitary hope amidst the crash of guns 
and the clash of steel, and above this desolate scene 
the flag of victory proudly floats, and mocks the tears 
of angels, whose pinions fill the sky with shadows, and 
whose warning is silenced by the cry of the vulgar 
mob. 

There is a law for individuals, but there is no law 
for nations. Murder is a crime in the citizen, but a 
virtue in the government. It would be the essence 
of brutality for a strong man to beat the life out of a 
child, or to club a helpless woman to death; but it is 
heroism for a mighty country to execute a weak coun¬ 
try, and the magnanimity of the deed becomes the 
theme of national glory, rehearsed by her orators to 
the gaping multitude, sung by her poets to the fren¬ 
zied millions. I will end this chapter with a quotation 
from Cicero, when he portrayed the evils of his dav: 
“O tempora ! O mores!” 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


I 77 


CHAPTER VII. 

HISPANO-AMERICAN WAR NOT JUSTIFIABLE. MEXICANS 
AND INDIANS OP NORTH AMERICA. ENGLAND NOT 
HUMANE, PROVED BY HER GOVERNMENT AT HOME 
AND ABROAD. A EOE TO EIBERTY. HAWAII. ANGLO- 
AMERICAN AEEIANCE. 

A AMERICANS look back with just pride upon 
the history of their great and glorious republic. 
We love our country. We love her lordly riv¬ 
ers and majestic mountains. We love her hills and 
vales. We love her great lakes and broad prairies, 
and we think there is no country on the globe like our 
own dear America. When I travel into other lands I 
always return to my native shores with the impression 
that fair Columbia is the only place on earth. 

While I am opposed to war, it is nevertheless with 
feelings of pride that I reflect upon the struggles 
through which this government has so triumphantly 
passed, because I know that a just cause actuated the 
men who covered our flag with glory on the dark and 
bloody field. At one time it was the cry of new-born 
liberty that called our ancestors from the rustic toil in 
the fields of New England, Virginia and Maryland, to 
meet the despot on Bunker Hill. Again, it was in 
defense of our rights on the seas that brought on the 
struggle of 1812. It was in support of democracy that 
this nation was embroiled in a bloody encounter with 
Mexico; and the war of 1861 was waged in defense of 


178 


The: Two Kingdoms 


human rights and for the preservation of our great 
government. 

The history of America hitherto has been the rec¬ 
ord of national glory, and the poet was truly inspired 
when he said that this was the “land of the free and the 
home of the brave.” But are there no spots on our 
starry banner? Has the flag of our nation been pre¬ 
served from the taint of crime? Has the completion 
of the age left no stain upon the purity of its blue and 
no cloud upon the glitter of its stars? The history of 
the eighteenth century closed with the triumph of our 
colonies, the independence of our nation; the creation 
of an asylum for liberty amidst the wilds of our woods, 
and upon the rocks of our mountains. Three Euro¬ 
pean powers were connected with the scenes that ter¬ 
minated with the glorious victory of Yorktown in 
1781 ; and in 1898 those three powers appear again in 
American history. 

More than a century ago the cry of justice went 
up from the lips of three millions of oppressed people 
to the throne of mercy, and the God of democracy 
strengthened the hearts of our ancestors to strike the 
blow for national emancipation. Who was this cruel 
tyrant that pursued our yeomen with lance and spear 
and battleaxe ? Who was the despot that said you shall 
have no voice in the legislative hall, and you shall be 
taxed to support the army and navy of a foreign land; 
an army that had lit the campfires in every vallev, that 
had hunted the goddess of liberty from every shore; a 
navy that had swept the seas in quest of plunder, and 
had crimsoned every wave with human gore? That 
despot was England. 

She invaded every right which the law of nations 
and the God of nature had given to the colonies. 
These little republics of the West had been formed by 


The Two Kingdoms. 


179 


sturdy men, who had been driven from the Old World 
by governmental oppression, and they came here to 
build the temple of liberty amidst the tall pine trees 
and stately oaks of the wild, unbroken wood. For two 
hundred years they had met every peril and conquered 
every foe. They had braved the dangers of these 
great primeval forests, filled with wild beasts and sav¬ 
age foemen. They cleared away the woods, built the 
cabin and the home, the hamlet and the town. They 
navigated the majestic streams, explored these vast 
regions, became familiar with all the hills and vales, 
and all the lakes and mountains of the western world. 
The commercial city rose in the wilderness, where a 
few years ago the roar of the lion and the shout of 
the huntsman were the only sounds that ever broke 
the wail of the woods or mingled with the voice of the 
streams. 

The wigwam disappeared from the banks of the 
Hudson and the Potomac, and civilization flourished 
on the ruins of the Indian village. The colonies grew, 
not by English favor or bv English patronage, but by 
English neglect, as Colonel Barre said in reply to the 
British Ministry, relative to the question of American 
taxation. When the time came for reaping benefits 
from the toil and sweat and tdood of the noble repub¬ 
licans of the West, the King of England was not slow 
to utilize these advantages. Great Britain imposed 
every burden upon the colonies and deprived them of 
every constitutional right, preparing to make this 
country the servile slave of despotism. In those days 
France and Spain were our friends, and their assist¬ 
ance was not only moral, but material, giving us all 
the support in their power. 

One hundred years have rolled away, and this 
scene is totally changed. Spain is now our enemy, 


i8o 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


France is our supposed enemy, and England is our 
darling friend. Shade of Washington, arise from thy 
peaceful slumber and denounce the cowardice, the 
servility and the hypocrisy of our age and nation! 
The men of ’76 have passed away, leaving no progeny 
to uphold the honor of our flag. Ingratitude is the 
vice of slaves, and the American Government has been 
guilty of this crime in the late war with Spain. 

Being a Christian, I am opposed to the use of the 
sword, and I hold that such a course is justifiable only 
in extreme cases. Now what was the plea advanced 
by the American nation in justification of its interfer¬ 
ence in the Spanish government of Cuba? The plea 
of humanity and civilization. They claimed that Span¬ 
ish atrocities in that island were the most revolting 
feats ever perpetrated on any people, and the cruelties 
of the Dons had no parallel in history. Perhaps there 
were many deeds of cruelty committed in the suppres¬ 
sion of the insurgent element, an essential feature in 
warfare in every land, as was amply illustrated in the 
measures adopted by the Federals of the United States 
in crushing the late Southern rebellion. 

This I have learned from German and American 
merchants who resided in Cuba during those turbulent 
times, and our soldiers and sailors not only confirm 
this statement, but also refute the declaration that 
Spanish honor can be impeached. The unanimous 
testimony of our army and navy conclusively prove 
that the Spanish are a proud, noble, generous, cour¬ 
teous, hospitable people, equal to Americans in all the 
characteristics of true manhood; whereas the insur¬ 
gents are rebellious, shiftless, indolent, mendacious 
and dishonest. It is true that a few of the officers, 
anxious to asperse the character of their foes and thus 
ignorantly and involuntarily diminishing their own 


The; Two Kingdoms. 181 

merits and the merits of their men, have said that the 
Spanish were both unskillful and lacking personal 
bravery. If this be true, then American sailors and 
soldiers should hang their heads in shame. Our fleet 
at the battle of Santiago quadrupled the naval forces of 
Cervera, and our army was thirty-five thousand, 
whereas the Spanish had but eight thousand. Hence 
on land we had four times the strength of our foe, and 
on sea the disparity was still greater, for many of our 
ships were the very best make. No one will deny 
that Cervera fought like a demon; and the little Span¬ 
ish army would have annihilated our land forces had 
our real strength been known. 

It does not enhance the glory of our victory to 
disparage the bravery of our enemies. Yet this is the 
American spirit of the nineteenth century, so unlike 
the noblemen who bore our flag in triumph through 
the dreadful struggle which ended with the recogni¬ 
tion of our national colors. 

But let us suppose that all the accusations against 
Spanish despotism in Cuba were true: was this gov¬ 
ernment justified in declaring war? By no means. 
There is a law for the adjustment of difficulties among 
individuals, and there should be a law for the adjust¬ 
ment of international questions. When a citizen of 
this republic has a grievance against a fellow-citizen, 
he is not allowed to seek private redress, but must 
vindicate his claims by appealing to the judgment of 
the legally constituted tribunal, authorized to act in 
the case specified. 

Why, then, did not this government pursue the 
same policy in the Hispano-Cuba- embroilment ? Does 
it expect her citizens to teach lessons of wisdom to the 
Republic by settling all difficulties by appealing to the 
decisions of the judicial bench? The Government is 


182 


The Two Kingdoms. 


constituted by the power of its citizens, and as the 
whole is greater than any of its parts, the Republic 
should be wiser, more just and more humane than any 
of its subjects. Therefore the idea of Henry the 
Fourth of France should have become an international 
law centuries ago. The plan of this benevolent mon¬ 
arch for the abolition of war in Europe consisted in 
forming a pacific republic, according to the phraseol¬ 
ogy of the French authors, by appointing delegates of 
the several nations, who were to act as a court of arbi¬ 
tration in any dispute that might arise between nation 
and nation. Thomas Paine writes that “Had such a 
plan been adopted at the time it was proposed, the 
taxes of England and France, as two of the parties, 
would have been at least ten millions sterling annually 
to each nation less than they were at the commence¬ 
ment of the French Revolution.” (Rights of Man, 

p- 331) 

America has always been regarded as a nation of 
peace and progress, and she has been admired by the 
world for her humane policy in avoiding the effusion 
of blood when it was possible ; and, while other nations 
have expended their resources in human butcheries, 
our glorious Republic has moved on in the grand 
march of civilization, astonishing Europe with the 
magnitude of her triumphs. 

There was an opportunity for this government to 
emphasize the blessings of arbitration in the late con¬ 
test between Spain and Cuba. Europe is ready to 
listen to any plan suggested by the wisdom of our 
people, and I have no hesitancy in saying that the 
pacific views of our Government would have been 
indorsed by every civilized nation on the globe, espe¬ 
cially since we were a disinterested party. It was in 
the power of the United States to bestow a heavenly 


The Two Kingdoms. 


183 


boon upon the world by taking the initial step in the 
convocation of a peace congress. In that case the 
representatives of the nations could have jointly and 
deliberately weighed the claims of Spain and Cuba, 
given their decision according to the laws of equity, 
presented this decision to the litigants, and the strife 
would have been ended, and the precedent of inter¬ 
national arbitration woultl have been established for all 
future time. 

Why was not this course pursued? In the first 
place, it lacked that sensational element so agreeable 
to the American temperament and so essential to the 
political life of the nation. Then again, our congress¬ 
men and senators wished to immortalize their names, 
and men of blood are always more famous in America 
than advocates of peace; for the former don the char¬ 
acter of the 4 ieroic, while the latter, creating no excite¬ 
ment to shock the nerves of the nation, soon pass into 
obscurity. There were a few men who wished to win 
distinction in the field of battle, as officers in the army, 
and while they were gaining renown, they could at the 
same time add a little to their bank accounts, and per¬ 
haps, after active warfare was at an end, obtain a 
sinecure. 

The press of the country wanted war in order to 
increase its circulation. In fact, the mendacity of 
American journalism is responsible for every drop of 
noble American blood that was shed in Cuba ; for every 
American life that was sacrificed in the march and 
camp; for every sigh of grief, for every tear of sorrow 
caused by the loss of dear ones who died of lever or 
were left to perish on the battlefield through criminal 
neglect of government officials. When the Spanish 
army surrendered, there was wailing heard in every 
newspaper office in the land, for the harvest of dis¬ 
honesty was over. 


184 


The Two Kingdoms. 


Perhaps some readers of this volume will question 
my patriotism. I do not love my country less because 
I love my God more. Every crime against justice is an 
insult to the majesty of heaven, and I regard the 
Hispano-American war a crime against justice, for it 
was an unnecessary crime, as I have already proved. 
Has it come to this that a man can not express his 
honest convictions without being branded as a traitor ? 

Great men of this and other ages have wielded the 
power of logic and the magic of eloquence to avert the 
calamities resulting from the conflict of armaments, 
and yet they have escaped the censure of their country¬ 
men, and have received the thanks of posterity. Burke 
and Sheridan opposed the policy of the British min¬ 
istry toward the American colonies. Lord Camden 
defended our rights in the House of Peers and Pitt 
boldly proclaimed in the House of Commons his joy 
that America had appealed to the sword. Lord Effing¬ 
ham resigned his commission rather than bear arms 
against America. The Marquis of Granby character¬ 
ized the taxation of the colonies as unjust and 
iniquitous, and pledged himself to oppose the bill till 
he drew his last breath. 

The memory of these men is revered in America, 
because they were angels of peace when this nation 
was unprepared for hostilities, and when the roar of 
the'cannon was supposed to sound the knell of liberty 
in the West. 

Why laud those English statesmen who were 
opposed to the war of 1776, and hang the American 
philanthropists who were opposed to the war of 1898? 
Will some wiseacre give me an answer to this query? 
I love my country with all the devotion of a nature 
fostered in the lap of the sunny South, and, were it 
necessary, I would gladly give my life for the honor 
of her flag. 


The; Two Kingdoms. 


i 85 


The Duke of Wellington—whose march across 
the continent of Europe from the Pillars of Hercules 
to the dykes of the Netherlands was traced in blood— 
said, in the British Parliament, in a speech favoring 
Catholic emancipation for Ireland, that he had spent 
his life in the camp, and was well acquainted with the 
cruelties of war, and would fain make any sacrifice, 
consistent with the majesty of the nation, rather than 
see the disasters of Waterloo enacted on the verdant 
hills of Erin. Daniel O’Connell, the devoted friend of 
liberty in every land, the uncompromising advocate of 
universal emancipation, said that all the kingdoms of 
the world were not worth a single drop of blood. 
These English and Celtic statesmen had more wisdom, 
more philanthropy, but less jingoism, than our Amer¬ 
ican politicians. 

It grieves a fond child to learn the crimes of his 
mother, and I blush for the errors of my native land. 
President Cleveland declared, in his message on the 
recognition of Cuban belligerency, that this country 
owed an eternal debt of gratitude to Spain, and, for 
that reason, he claimed that we should not molest her 
in her colonial policy. 

However, I would not suspect the sincerity of our 
bellicose attitude toward the government of Madrid, 
had I not observed our toadyism to Great Britain. 
England was our enemy in 1776; again in 1812, and 
later on in 1861. Nearly every sword that shed the 
blood of Federal soldiers in defense of our national 
union was made in English factories. Nearly every 
ship that decoyed and destroyed our American vessels 
was made in English dockyards. * 

But by some magic influence, by some latent 
power of transformation, the only European enemy 
that we ever had, has become our dearest friend, and 


The Two Kingdoms. 


i 86 

all our old friends have become staunch foes. This 
nation is gifted with a marvelous faculty of forgetting 
ancient favors and ancient wrongs; it has a very con¬ 
venient memory. 

We hate Spain, Americans say, because her his¬ 
tory is black with crime; and we love dear old England 
because her government is just and humane.. Eng¬ 
land is the great civilizer. There shall be an Anglo- 
American alliance. The time is ripe for this move¬ 
ment. We are the two greatest nations on earth, and 
when our friendship is firmly cemented, when our 
forces are united and put in action, we are destined 
to revolutionize the world. This is the language of 
the press and the rostrum, the statesman and the poli¬ 
tician, the educated and the ignorant rabble who did 
not know the geographical position of Spain before the 
late war, or who could not even to-day tell what waters 
lave the shores of Britain. 

Such language means total ignorance of history. 
Such sentiments were begotten by the contemptible 
spirit of the Astors and the Vanderbilts and that mon¬ 
grel herd of money-kings, who are ashamed of their 
country because of the uncongeniality of its clime to 
the growth of aristocracy; who would gladly exchange 
American gold for English blood, and who, in heart 
and soul, are more English than the English them¬ 
selves. 

Let us compare the history of Spain with the his¬ 
tory of Great Britain. While the record of the latter 
is tinged with many cruelties, yet the Goth is like an 
angel of light when placed side by side with the British 
Lion, whose paws are stained with the blood of the 
nations. What has Spain done for her conquered do¬ 
minions in the Western world? Prescott writes that 
“the first object of Cortes was to reclaim the natives 


The Two Kingdoms. 


187 


from their gross idolatry, and to substitute a purer 
form of worship. There was nothing which the Span¬ 
ish Government had more at heart than the conver¬ 
sion of the Indians. It forms the constant burden of 
their instructions.” (Conquest of Mexico, vol. 1, p. 
255.) The same author informs us that the Spanish 
cavalier never shed the blood of the Aztec except when 
it was essential to the triumph of Christianity amidst 
the shadows of pagan altars. “Before his departure 
the Spanish commander did not omit to provide for 
one great object of his expedition, the conversion of 
the Indians.” (Ibid,, p. 272.) 

As much as Americans have deprecated the influ¬ 
ence of Spanish civilization in Mexico, statistics show 
that, when we consider the character of the people, the 
change wrought by the humane policy of the Castilian 
conquerors is remarkable. Thirty-eight per cent, of 
the people of that country are full-blooded Indians; 
forty-three per cent, are mongrels, and only fifteen per 
cent, are purely Caucasian, “a proportion that is ap¬ 
plicable to nearly all Central and South America.” 

In 1888 Mexico had 10,926 primary schools, with 
nearly 600,000 pupils, besides T05 establishments for 
secondary and professional instruction. 

Alfred Young has furnished the best authority for 
the following statistics: There are 72 public libraries, 
with 236,000 volumes; and private libraries with from 
1,000 to 8,000 volumes are innumerable. There are 
19 museums of antiquities, paintings and natural his¬ 
tory. There are 73 institutions dedicated to the cul¬ 
tivation of the arts and sciences, of which 29 are scien¬ 
tific, 3 meteorological observatories, 21 literary, 20 
agricultural, and 3 of a mixed character. There are 
317 newspapers, besides numerous scientific, literary, 
artistic, religious and political magazines. The same 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


i 88 

author proves, from the ablest writers of the age, that 
the artistic work of native Mexicans, exhibited in the 
Academy of San Carlos, compare most favorably with 
the master productions in the Academy of Paris, Rome 
and Munich. This is the educational status of Mexico 
civilized by the Spaniards, and the figures can be veri¬ 
fied of all the lands in the Western world, that were 
formerly under the dominion of Spain. 

Now where are the fruits of Anglo-Saxon civil¬ 
ization on the savage tribes of North America? I 
travel along the Atlantic Sea from the coast of Maine 
to Texas, and I find the relics of the race that once oc¬ 
cupied the present site of great cities; that once plied 
their light canoes on that great ocean, and I ask 
whither has that race vanished? I sail down the Ken¬ 
nebec, the Merrimac, and the Rappahannock, and look 
for the people who have left their language on these 
limpid waters. I visit the great lakes of the North, 
gaze upon Ontario’s foaming billows, and listen to 
Niagara’s thundering voice; navigate the Ohio as it 
sweeps the dark and bloody ground and joins the Fa¬ 
ther of Waters, and I see no signs of Indian life, and I 
wonder whither the Red Man has vanished. I pass on 
to the South, and I read the language of a lost race 
on every hill and stream. I climb the rugged moun¬ 
tains that rise like evening clouds around the setting 
sun, and there I find the remnant of the doomed race. 

I ask the Indian chief where are those tribes that 
once filled the Mississippi Valley and roamed over 
the Blue Ridge and Alleghenies, and built their vil¬ 
lages on the Atlantic slope. Go and speak to the 
Genesee and Saranac, the Mohawk and the Oswego. 
Call upon the waves of Champlain and Huron, Otsego 
and Cayuga. Listen to the voice of the Penobscot and 
the Connecticut, the Monongahela and the Susque- 


The Two Kingdoms. 


189 

hanna. The brooks and rills and capes and bays tell 
you that they are all gone. Their blood is upon the 
mountain rocks, and their bones sleep in the valley. 
They were hunted like beasts of prey by those who 
came to them in the name of humanity. They were 
slaughtered on the banks of the Delaware and the 
Schuylkill, on the shores of Narragansett and Lake 
Erie. They were buried by the waters of the James 
and the Potomac, the Shenandoah and the Great 
Kanawha. Their sad requiem has been chanted by 
the rippling of the Roanoke and the Santee, the Neuse 
and the Altamaha. 

This great country, from New York to the Golden 
Gate, is the cemetery of the Red race. They were 
massacred and left to be devoured by the eagles of the 
air. The story of English civilization is told by the 
bones that were left to bleach upon the shores of the 
Tennessee and the Arkansas, the Cumberland and the 
Sabine. It is written on the Indian graves that are 
found by the Wabash and the Scioto, the Maumee and 
the Big Sandy. 

England established no schools for the aborigines, 
but, wiser than the Iberian conquerors of the .South, 
sent them to the happy hunting grounds, where 
schools are not necessary. As savage life was mis¬ 
erable, she considered this wholesale massacre of the 
Red race a coup de grace, and spoliation of their land 
and desecration of their graves and the graves of their 
sires, as heroic deeds, worthy of the age of chivalry. 
The usurpation of Indian rights and the extermination 
of the Indian race, so successfully begun by the Anglo- 
Saxon, has been completed by the American. But, of 
course, this highway robbery and brutal butchery were 
done on the basis of humanity and civilization (the 
motives assigned for our late war with Spain). 


The; Two Kingdoms. 


190 


When we reflect upon the sad fate of the North 
American Indian, robbed, hunted, murdered, driven 
from the Alleghenies to the Rockies, perishing upon 
the shores of the Pacific, and then look to the fertile 
plains of Mexico, rich in the fruit of husbandry, her 
cities alive with the music of mill and factory, adorned 
with schools, universities and libraries, we should hang 
our heads in shame over the degrading results of our 
civilization, and never cease to praise the humanity 
and generosity of the Goth. 

Wherever Spain has planted her colors she has 
provided for the weal of the natives, and expended her 
wealth and energy to uplift the savage and make him 
the peer of his conquerors. The following extract is 
taken from the pen of Alfred Young: “Spanish power 
and law gave peace and tranquillity to the native tribes 
of the Philippine Islands, which, of all things in the 
world, is most needed by savage and semi-barbarous 
people; and hence even the Malays have improved 
under the dominion of Spain.” The same author in¬ 
forms us that the population of the Philippines in 1833 
was 3,153,290 ; in 1877 it had increased to 5,561,232, 
and in 1893 it was 7,000,000. The Sandwich Islands, 
On the other hand, have diminished in population from 
142,000 in 1823 to 34,000 in 1890. 

Spanish influence 011 savage life is manifested in 
the preservation and civilization of the natives, whereas 
the aborigines wither before the armed hosts of Eng¬ 
lish-speaking countries. 

But we are not through with England yet. Let 
us take a cursory view of her past history, and we will 
open this phase of the question by directing our atten¬ 
tion to Anglo-Hibernian affairs. Ever since the 
Norman set foot on Irish soil, more than seven hun¬ 
dred years ago, that land has been under the shadow 


The Two Kingdoms. 


191 

of hell. In the early centuries of Christianity, Ireland 
was the school of the West, and the learning and sanc¬ 
tity of her sons gained for her the distinctive appella¬ 
tion of the home of scholars and the island of saints. 
She had twelve great universities, each containing 
from one to seven thousand students. Armagh and 
Bangor, Taghman and Beg-Erin, Lismore and Mun- 
gret, Mayo of the Saxons and the Isle of Aran are 
names redolent of virtue and lore. 

Within the hallowed walls of these seats of learn¬ 
ing there were congregated students from the banks of 
the Tweed and the highlands of Scotland, from the 
Thames and the Avon, from the Rhine and the Seine. 
Columbanus and Columbkill, Brendan and Killian, 
Aidan and Rumald, Clement and Albinus, Ducuil and 
Dungan are names that are written on the rocks of 
Europe and emblazon the history of civilization. 
Scotland received her nationality from the sons of 
Hibernian blood, and England, France, Germany and 
Switzerland were Christianized bv missionaries from 
the Green Isle. 

But the Anglo-Saxon came as the conqueror of 
the land, and his elastic conscience would accommo¬ 
date itself to every crime. The triumph of the Nor¬ 
man was the triumph of rapine, pillage, blood. Laws 
were enacted forbidding the invaders to intermarry 
with the Irish or to adopt the Irish language or Irish 
customs. The English Government employed every 
art of chicanery to carry- out its purpose of spoliation 
and confiscation. During the reign of Elizabeth, that 
good, auspicious queen, who enjoyed the unenviable 
distinction of being the grand-daughter of her own 
father, a class of men were formed for the purpose of 
finding flaws in the titles of lands, and of course all 
such reverted to the crown, and was parceled out to 


192 


The Two Kingdoms. 


royal favorites and court sycophants. This band of 
title hunters were called undertakers, and they were 
well named, for their office consisted in the political, 
financial and, if necessary, the corporal interment of 
their victims. 

In the language of Thomas D’Arcy McGee, “The 
undertaker was usually a man of peace—a courtier 
like Sir Christopher Hatton, a politician like Sir 
Walter Raleigh, a poet like Edward Spenser, a spy 
and a forger like Sir Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork. 
He came in the wake of war with his elastic letters 
patent, or, if he served in the field, it was mainly with 
a view to subsequent confiscation. He was adroit at 
finding flaws in ancient titles, skilled in all the feudal 
quibbles of fine and recovery, and ready to employ the 
secret dagger where hard swearing and fabricated doc¬ 
uments might fail to make good his title.” (Hist, of 
Ireland, p. 400.) 

Sir Peter Carew was one of the earliest under¬ 
takers, and by virtue of his descent from Robert Fitz- 
stephen, an obscure personage in the reign of Henry 
the Second of England, who lived four hundred years 
previously to the period of which I speak, he claimed 
the barony of I drone in Carlow and half the kingdom 
of Desmond; and the viceroy, Sir Henry Sidney, ad¬ 
mitted these pretensions. The extirpation of the 
Munster Geraldines in the right line having been 
accomplished by the bloody hand of the assassin, the 
property of that house, consisting of 540,000 acres of 
land, was vested in the queen. This amiable lady, 
good Queen Bess, so praised by the English nation 
as a perfect type of English character, divided the land 
among her sycophants. Hatton received 10,000 acres; 
Raleigh, T2,ooo acres; Sir William Herbert, 13,000 
acres; Sir Edward Denny, 6,000 acres; Sir Warham 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


193 


St. Leger, 6,000 acres; Sir William Courtney, 10,000 
acres; Sir Edward Fitton, 11,500 acres, and the poet 
Edward Spenser, 3,000. 

In 1609 James the First exterminated all the 
natives of tne province of Ulster, and the land, consist¬ 
ing of 500,000 acres, was given to the henchmen of the 
crown and Scotch and English settlers. During the 
same reign the commission for the discovery of de¬ 
fective titles was instituted, and through the servile 
agency of that governmental creation 450,000 acres of 
land in the central and south of Ireland were confis¬ 
cated. 

Cromwell offered quarter to three thousand men 
at the battle of Drogheda on the condition that they 
would lay down their arms. The simplicity and hon¬ 
esty of the Irish character, trusting to the word of a 
British brute, were rewarded with an indiscriminate 
massacre of the entire town, including men, women 
and children. When the people saw the blood flowing 
in the streets, and knew well that the day of doom had 
come, they fled to St. Peter’s Church, and Cromwell 
never allowed one to escape from that sacred retreat. 

Three hundred mothers, with their babes in their 
arms, were slaughtered on the market green in the 
town of Wexford. One hundred thousand men were 
shipped to the Barbadoes and sold as slaves, and 
among them were four thousand little boys, from ten 
to twelve years; and the remainder (six hundred thou¬ 
sand) were driven to the mountains of Connaught. 
The province was encircled with a cordon of red coats, 
and the helpless victims were forbidden to come within 
three miles of the Shannon and three miles of the sea- 
coast under penalty of death. 

At that time there was a new survey of the land 
made by Dr. William Retty, and it was discovered that 


*94 


The: Two Kingdoms 


there were 10,500,000 acres in the island, and all but 
900,000 acres was confiscated and given to the merce¬ 
nary troops that followed the flag of the Protector. 

The history of British rule in Ireland is the his¬ 
tory of blood, plunder, rObberv and confiscation; the 
history of perfidy; the history of the blackest crimes, 
the most heartless cruelty that ever disgraced any 
nation, in any age. Thousands were massacred an¬ 
nually, and their property donated to spies, informers, 
miscreants or adventurous soldiers. Many a time the 
land was left desolate by fire and the sword, and every 
hill and vale covered with human carcasses, the result 
of English law, the work of English brutality. 

J. O’Leary thus sums up British atrocities in the 
Emerald Isle: ‘‘Oh, this bleeding, persecuted, pauper 
remnant of the Irish race must be enslaved, enthralled 
and enchained ! Misfortunes may be retrieved, defeats 
reversed and conquests overthrown, but the machinery 
of the law must make the calamities of Ireland irre¬ 
versible. It must roll on, grinding out the remnant of 
the race, regularly, incessantly, remorselessly. It must 
not only strike down the man and the nation arid their 
surroundings, but must stamp out the soul, the man¬ 
hood, the spirit and the nationality. O ye laws! strike 
the intellect. No Irishman shall henceforth be a law¬ 
yer, a physician, a clergyman; no Irishman shall be 
eligible to place of power or emolument; no Irishman 
shall have an elective voice in the land of his fathers; 
no Irishman shall have a right to educate or be edu¬ 
cated; no Irishman shall be a common mechanic. O 
ve laws! strike the morals. One Northman shall be 
in every house in Ireland, and may violate the wife or 
daughter or sister of the Irishman. The Englishman 
may kill the Irishman and not be subject to the same 
tribunal. Son, betray thy father; daughter, betray thy 


The Two Kingdoms. 195 

mother; brother, forget thy sister.” (Ireland Among 
the Nations, p. 146.) But all this was accomplished in 
the name of humanity. 

England endeavored to make the world believe 
that this great race of people was unfit to govern itself, 
and that these stringent measures were adopted to 
keep down rebellions. O ye angels of God above 
the starry realm, ministers of Infinite Truth, send 
down your bolts of vengeance upon the authors of that 
infamous falsehood ! The sons of Erin, persecuted, 
robbed, hunted by the sleuthhounds of hell among the 
glades and mountain dells of their own loved isle of 
the ocean, banished from home and fatherland, wan¬ 
dering exiles, they have gone forth to ca^t their 
fortunes beneath the blue of foreign skies; they have 
fought the battles of the world; they have won glory 
in every country, and have sat in the council halls of 
every nation. 

The flash of the burnished steel in the golden 
sheen that smiled upon the smoky clouds of Bunker 
Hill was seen afar upon the mountains of Erin, and 
the boom of the cannon filled her shores with the echo 
of liberty; and, leaving their native land, the sons of 
those heroes who had dispersed the British battalions 
and driven them back from the walls of Limerick, 
crossed the ocean waves to fight their tyrants on the 
gorv fields of the West. Jeremiah O’Brien and his 
four gallant brothers fought and won for America the 
first naval battle in the War of the Revolution. This 
brilliant action occurred on the nth of May, 1775, in 
Micheas Bay, and was styled by Fenimore Cooper 
“the Lexington of the Seas.” 

A contemptible little sheet in this locality a few 
months ago referred to this achievement in speaking 
of our naval record, but it did not have the honesty to 


196 


The Two Kingdoms. 


confess that the heroes of that glorious engagement 
were Irishmen, and even concealed their names, that 
it might conceal their nationality. To praise Irishmen 
would have been an insult to John Bull. 

Commodore John Barry founded the American 
navy, won its first battles, died in the service, and per¬ 
petuated our glory on the seas by training Dale, 
Murrav, Decatur and Stewart, all sons of the Emerald 
Isle. 

In the army of the Revolution, fighting for the 
freedom of our nation, were Moylan, Sullivan, Wayne 
and the gallant Richard Montgomery, who fell on the 
heights of Quebec. General Washington’s “Life 
Guard” was composed principally of Irishmen. 

Besides the many valorous leaders of Irish birth, 
the ranks were filled with the sons of that distressed 
land, willing to sacrifice their hearts’ blood that other 
countries might escape the despotism of the British 
scepter. John Smilie, an Irish immigrant, was chair¬ 
man of the senatorial committee that authorized the 
President to levy taxes for the purpose of prosecuting 
the war of 1812; and John C. Calhoun, secretary of 
war during the same momentous period, was the son 
of an Irish immigrant. On the Canadian frontier we 
find Brady, Reilly, Croghan, McCcmb and Mullany; 
on the lakes, Commodore McDonough, and on the 
ocean, Shaw, and Stewart. 

In the cause of South American independence we 
find Irish brigades fighting under McKenna, O’Hig¬ 
gins, Devereux, O’Connor and O’Leary. 

In the history of the French Revolution we learn 
that Napoleon was grateful to the expatriated children 
of Erin, who were banished from home after the 
rebellion of ’98; and we* find among the officers of the 
French army O’Connor, Corbet, Ware, Allen, Bvrne, 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


197 


Tone and Keating. The last sword was drawn in 
defense of the Monarchy in 1791 by Count Dillon and 
Count. Wall. 

The Blakes and the O’Neills, the Sarsfields, the 
Cavanaghs, the O’Reillys, the Nugents, the O’Garas 
and the O’Donnells, fill the history of Spain and 
Austria with Celtic glory. It was Count O’Reilly who 
saved the remnant of the Austrian hosts at Austerlitz, 
and Napoleon expressed his surprise that, when he 
entered Vienna in 1805 and again in 1809, he found 
himself on each occasion in treaty with this Irish hero. 

Irishmen, driven from their native land, entered 
the armies of Continental Europe, and many a time 
they met the Briton on the field of battle and stained 
his boasted record with inglorious defeat. 

O’Mahanv and Fitz James won the battle of 
Almanza, which decided the Spanish succession. 
Again we meet Irish regiments under Lacy, Lawless 
and Wogan. The ranks of Conde, Turenne and Prince 
Eugene were filled with Irish soldiers, commanded by 
Irish officers. Irish bravery was displayed at Yittoria, 
Luzzara, Friedlingen, Spires, Blenheim, Oudenarde, 
Malplaquet, Denain, Namur, Enghein, Steinkirk and 
Landen. 

The sons of the Emerald Isle occupied the most 
responsible positions in European politics. They were 
honored with noble titles in compensation for dieir 
services and in recognition of their merits. We find 
the names of Count Dillon, Count O’Gara, Count 
Reilly, Count O’Neill, Count Wall, Sarsfield, Cava- 
nagh and other Celtic names in the court records of 
Europe. We find them in the councils of kings, serv¬ 
ing as statesmen in the halls of nations, and discharg¬ 
ing ambassadorial duties at the throne of foreign 
powers. 


198 


The Two Kingdoms. 


A few years ago this nation was entertained with 
the nuptial solemnity of an American heiress and a 
foreign count, whereby the young lady gave her gal¬ 
lant lover three millions of dollars prior to the wedding 
in part payment for her participation in the honors of 
his title, with the implicit understanding that the bride 
would advance annual sums requisite for the main¬ 
tenance of his dignity as a member of the French 
nobility. I was in Paris last summer, and I learned 
that the contract has never been invalidated by the 
refusal of the countess to honor the drafts of the count. 
The Irish can obtain, by the use of their brains, these 
distinctions which Americans acquire by fabulous 
expenditure of gold accumulated by the sweat of the 
toiling poor. 

The stage, the rostrum and the pen have been 
glorified by Celtic genius. Quinn. Barry, Sheridan, 
Mrs Woffington, Mrs. Jordan and Miss O’Neill stood 
at the head of the theatrical profession in their day. 
As orators the Irish race has never been surpassed, 
and rarely ever equaled. Edmund Malone was the 
peer of his age, and Anthony Malone was considered 
the rival of Mansfield and Chatham. Before that time 
Sir Toby Butler, Baron Rice and Patrick Darcy 
thrilled the isles of the western ocean with their elo¬ 
quence. At a later period we have a shining host of 
illustrious names. The Irish bar was represented by 
Grattan and Curran, Flood and John Ely Hutchison, 
O’Connell and Shiel, Plunkett and Bushe. Irish elo¬ 
quence in England was personified in the matchless 
oratory of Burk and Sheridan, Barre and Sir Philip 
Francis, Canning, Croker and North.. The field of 
literature was adorned with the works of Goldsmith 
and Madden, Edmund Malone and Swift, Maria 
Edgeworth and Lady Morgan, Murphy and Brooke, 
Macklin and Tighe. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


1 99 


These are but a few of the glorious names of Irish 
history. Remember also that this bright array of 
genius was begotten amidst the throes of revolution 
and the blood of persecution, when Irish liberty w r as 
crushed, and Irish education was proscribed, under 
death penalties, by the despotism of the British throne. 
Had the bayonet of the Norman and the lance of the 
Saxon been withdrawn from the heart of the Celt three 
hundred years ago; had not the genius of that race 
been dwarfed and crushed by English legislation and 
English brutality, the star of Athens, that once 
illumined the world, would have risen upon the waves 
of the Irish sea, and the glory of Ancient Greece would 
have been born again upon the verdant shores of Erin. 
But these crimes against the prosperity of Ireland; 
these bloody wars, these cruel massacres, these pro¬ 
scriptive laws against education and the material 
development of the natural resources of the land; 
these penal statutes; this total disregard of every social 
and individual right; this long catalogue of black 
iniquities, are glorified by Americans as virtues in the 
English Government, because they were perpetrated 
in the name of humanity and civilization. 

A wave of desolation has followed the triumph of 
British power in every quarter of the globe, and the 
British army has changed the smiling valleys of every 
land into a Haceldama. Let us hear Charles E. Lester 
on the influence of British civilization in India. The 
author informs us that, through the diplomacy, in¬ 
trigue, cunning and the martial power and skill of the 
British Empire, the greater part of the broad, rich and 
fertile lands of India have passed from the original 
owners into the hands of selfish, perfidious speculators 
who have gone to that country for no other purpose 
in view r , except with the preconceived plan of spoliat- 


200 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


ing the property of the natives and enriching their 
families with the spoils of unscrupulous machinations 
against the rights of an inferior people. Then he 
quotes the language of Dr. Bowering in support of his 
opinion of the disastrous results of English supremacy 
in the distant regions of the Asiatic Continent. “We 
boast that we are a civilized, a religious, instructed 
nation. What of all these blessings have we conferred 
on India? What a picture does India present! pos¬ 
sessing boundless tracts of land, with every shade of 
climate, fit for the best productions of the earth, yet 
men starving by thousands and hundreds of thousands 
from famine, while the storehouses of the East India 
Company are filled with bread wrung from the soil by 
a standing army.” (Glory and Shame of England, 
Harper & Bros. Ed., vol. 2nd, p. 60.) 

Bowering says that England has not given re¬ 
ligious liberty or justice to India, but has afflicted her 
with every wrong, ruined her temples, her institutions 
and her commerce, and has filled her realm with dis¬ 
cord, blood and famine. Lester writes that “the East 
India Company have not only sanctioned and upheld 
the Hindu and Mohammedan system of slavery, but, 
also, the enslavement of multitudes of free and inno¬ 
cent persons, and that of their posterity after them, by 
means of which the slave population has been vastly 
increased; and all this in open violation of Hindu, 
Mohammedan and British law. They have counte¬ 
nanced the unrestricted sale of slaves belonging to 
persons subject to their authority, in which the ten- 
derest ties of social life have been disregarded, and by 
which an extensive system of kidnaping has been 
created, with all its attendant horrors. They also 
sanctioned the free importation of slaves into their 
territories from foreign states. They have confirmed, 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


201 


too, the continual slavery of large numbers of free 
persons/’ (Ibid., p. 64.) 

Carling, a resident counselor in Malacca, says 
that “Before I can believe that slaves are treated 
humanely, I must cast from my mind the remembrance 
of the cries which I have heard, and the mental degra¬ 
dation, the rags, the wretchedness, the bruises, the 
contused eyes and burns which I have witnessed; I 
must blot out adultery from ,the calendar of vices; I 
must disbelieve the numerous proofs which I have had 
of obstacles to regular marriages and the general 
humiliation of females.” (Ibid., p. 65.) 

Then he gives an idea of the punishment admin¬ 
istered to those helpless, degraded creatures whom 
England pretends to have civilized. For the crime of 
false accusation, twelve lashes with the rattan and to 
work on the roads in irons for a period of six weeks. 
For impertinence and idleness, one dozen stripes with 
a rattan and to be worked in irons on the public roads 
for one month. For absconding, thirty-six lashes with 
the rattan and to be worked on the public roads in 
irons for six months. Running away, eighteen lashes 
with a rattan; insolence, six lashes. 

A writer in a London paper says: “Such is the 
character and such, at this very time, are the effects of 
slavery in British India, under the various forms of 
domestic and field slaves, eunuchs, concubines and 
dancing girls, kept for the purpose of prostitution, the 
lawless gain of which comes into the hands of the 
masters.” (Ibid, p. 67.) 

At the trial of Warren Hastings for his misde¬ 
meanors in India, Sheridan said that, if in surveying 
the ruin that has fallen upon the land and that was for¬ 
merly Sujah Dowlah’s, we seek the cause of the 
calamity, we must acknowledge that “This damp of 


202 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


death is the mere effusion of British amity,” and we 
hear the natives proclaim that “We sink under the 
pressure of their support, we writhe under the gripe 
of their pestiferous alliance.” 

Burke, on opening the impeachment of Warren 
Hastings, said: “We charge the offender with no 
crimes that have not arisen from passions which it is 
not criminal to harbor ; with no offenses which have 
not their root in avarice, rapacity, pride, insolence, 
ferocity, treachery, cruelty, malignity of temper; in 
short, that does not argue a total extinction of all 
moral principle, that does not manifest an inveterate 
blackness of heart, dyed in grain with malice, vitiated, 
corrupted, gangrened to the very core.” 

But you say these were the crimes of an indi¬ 
vidual. I answer that these crimes were known and 
sanctioned by the British Government, and the excul¬ 
pation of the criminal before the highest tribunal in 
the land proves, evidently, that the Governor-General 
of India was acting according to the spirit of British 
law. Volumes would not do justice to the systematic 
spoliation, enthrallment, degradation, demoralization 
and assassination of the people of India by the British 
Government. But, of course, all this was perpetrated 
in the name of humanity and civilization. 

Let us leave the Valley of the Ganges and trans¬ 
port ourselves to the shores of the Avon and the 
Thames, and see what England has done for her sub¬ 
jects at home. The history of that kingdom is the 
history of despotism and serfdom, luxury and poverty, 
intelligence and ignorance. It is a land of lords and 
slaves, tyrants and their victims, masters and their 
menials. 

Charles E. Lester says that the friends of human¬ 
ity in England are tearing off the mask from the gilded 


The Two Kingdoms. 


203 


institutions of Britain, displaying to the gaze of the 
world the barbarities and oppression inflicted upon 
the downtrodden masses of the poor, whose sad con¬ 
dition is far worse than the most cruel examples of 
African bondage. “Having witnessed the condition 
of the English operative and the American slave, I 
would choose the lot of the latter for my children.” 
(Condition and Fate of England, vol. 1, p.254.) 

The London Journal says that the infernal cruelty ' 
practiced upon boys and girls in the coal mines has 
never been surpassed in any age. These atrocities are 
almost beyond credulity, and in reading a report of 
them you would imagine that you were perusing sav¬ 
age records of the darkest ages. These little children, 
six, seven and eight years of age, male and female, in 
many cases in a state of nudity, are “chained like 
brutes to coal carriages and dragging them on all 
fours through sludge six or seven inches deep, in total 
darkness, occasionally twenty, in special instances 
thirty, hours successively, without any cessation, even 
to get meals, than is casually afforded by the unreadi¬ 
ness of the miners—here is a pretty picture of British 
civilization!” (Ibid, p. 255.) 

The Dublin Freeman Journal says: “Talk of 
slavery! The condition, physical as well as moral, of 
the most degraded bondsman may be esteemed ex¬ 
alted if compared with that of the free collier of Eng¬ 
land.” (Ibid, p. 254.) 

A female witness, working in the English colliery, 
gives evidence in the following words: “I wear a belt 
and chain at the workings to get the corves out. The 
getters are naked, except their caps; they pull off all 
their clothes. They sometimes beat me if I am not 
quick enough. There are twenty boys and fifteen men. 
All are naked.” (Ibid, p. 262.) 


204 


The Two Kingdoms. 

i 

Throughout his four volumes, Charles E. Lester 
exposes English barbarity. According to this author¬ 
ity, children, from six to twenty-one years, are em¬ 
ployed in these dismal caverns for fourteen hours and 
upwards every day. They work in a state of perfect 
nudity, drawing the coal carriages on their knees, and 
an overseer, with a cat-o’-nine-tails, forcibly urges 
them to accelerate their speed. These children live in 
garrets, on a crust of bread of the coarsest kind. 

While England was agitating universal emanci¬ 
pation of slavery, while she was busy fomenting the 
Civil War in America, she had millions of white slaves 
within her island dominions. But, of course, all these 
ruthless deeds of savagery were perpetrated in the 
name of humanity and civilization. 

Sydney Smith writes that in England there are 
thousands of homeless, breadless, friendless, without 
raiment, without shelter, without hope. (Ibid, p. 239.) 

Lester writes in Glory and Shame of England: 
“Show me a very learned man in England, and I will 
show you some thousands around him to match the 
spectacle who can not read the Bible nor write their 
names; a rich man, and I will show you a thousand 
beggars ; a polished and beautiful woman, and hard 
by, yes, following her carriage, I will show you one 
who is driven to sell her virtue for a bit of bread; who 
hunts the filthy drain for a morsel of castaway food; 
and who, in default of that, is gathering with her naked 
hands the vilest filth in the street to sell for manure to 
get a crust or a bone before she dies.” I could quote 
volumes on this question. But enough! the heart 
grows sad in contemplating these pictures of pauper¬ 
ism, slavery, degradation, cruelty and barbarity of 
English life. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


205 


And what about English law and justice? The 
history of Ireland shows that men were hanged for 
deeds that were perpetrated when the supposed cul¬ 
prits were hundreds of miles from the scenes of the 
crime, and when the alibi was amply sustained. Lord 
Macaulay says that in the days of James the First it 
was customary to punish every suspicious character 
without the faintest scintilla of evidence against his 
honesty. Lord Jeffreys frequently ordered the culprit 
to be hanged immediately, and tried the case afterward 
at his convenience. Baron Macaulay writes that pre¬ 
viously to the Revolution “a state trial was merely a 
murder preceded by the uttering of certain gibberish 
and the performance of certain mummeries.” 

And this is the country that seeks an alliance with 
us! And the broad Republic of the United States is 
filled with servile Anglomaniacs who are wreathing 
garlands for the nuptial festivity. O land of the free 
and home of the brave! with thy generous record of 
justice, with a flag that has never been tarnished with 
the slightest stain, wilt thou permit the bloody hand of 
the assassin to place the Wedding ring on thy lily white 
finger! Wilt thou pollute thy ruby lips with the fiend’s 
kiss! Wilt thou repose thy virgin cheeks on the 
bestial bosom of the modern Babylon! O land of my 
nativity! I love thy mountains and thy vales; I love 
thy lakes and thy streams; I love thy heroes and thy 
sages; the pioneers who brought the blessings of civi¬ 
lization to thy mighty forests, and the patriots who 
chased the tyrant’s minions from thy shores, and en¬ 
throned the goddess of liberty in thy national hall, and 
whose wings stretch from Boston harbor to the Golden 
Gate, and whose smile gladdens all the realm from the 
frozen banks of the St. Lawrence to the glittering 
sands of the Mexican Gulf. O land of Washington 


20 6 


The Two Kingdoms. 


and Jefferson, Hancock and Adams, thou hast been 
the unflinching foe of oppression, the unswerving 
advocate of freedom, the uncompromising friend of 
humanity; thou hast opened the door to the stranger 
from every region and hast welcomed him to the frui¬ 
tion of thy privileges and rewarded his merits with 
sacred trusts; thou hast broken the rod of the despot, 
thou hast hurled the diadem of kings in the dust; thou 
hast torn the badge of nobility from the cradle of in¬ 
fancy and hast created the aristocracy of labor, the 
aristocracy of honesty, the aristocracy of intellect. 

After the brief history of a century, following the 
angel of progress in its flight above the clouds, amidst 
the sheen of glittering stars and zones of purple light; 
after a century prolific of the grandest results that ever 
crowned the genius of a nation, that ever glorified the 
world with its heavenly benisons, shalt thou halt in 
thy benevolent course, in the march of civilization, 
retrace thy steps, forget the wisdom of thy eldest sons, 
the hardships of the wilderness, the trials of the Pil¬ 
grim Fathers on the shores of Massachusetts, the 
difficulties that beset the first immigrants at James¬ 
town and St. Mary’s; wilt thou forget the Stamp Act, 
the Importation Act, the wine and sugar duties, the 
glass and tea tax? Wilt thou forget the battles of 
Lexington and Concord, Long Island and Harlem 
Heights, Trenton and Princeton, Bennington and 
Brandywine? Wilt thou forget Fort Mackinaw and 
Detroit, Queenstown Heights and Ogdensburg? Wilt 
thou forget what England did in 1861 to dismember 
this grand republic? Wilt thou forget the record of 
the Alabama, that burned and sunk seventy vessels of 
the American Navy? Wilt thou forget the history of 
Britain at home, how she has impoverished, enthralled 
and degraded her subjects? Wilt thou forget the 


The Two Kingdoms. 207 

story of British cruelty to Ireland, whose sons came 
to our shores and enrolled beneath our starry banner, 
and marched in every army, and fought on every field 
from the dawn of the Revolution until the close of the 
Hispano-American War? Wilt thou forget that the 
Celtic nation, which, for seven hundred years, has been 
victimized by Saxon perfidy and Saxon brutality, has 
filled our veins with its noble blood, and that our glory 
is inseparably connected with the history of those wan¬ 
dering exiles who escaped from the hills of Connaught 
and the plains of Ulster and the mountains of Kerry 
and sought an asylum beneath the smile of the western 
stars ? 

Wilt thou, O Cradle of Liberty, Child of Democ¬ 
racy, mother to the homeless and the friendless, out¬ 
rage the feelings of thy children by a marital union 
with the Scarlet Woman? 

It is England yesterday, to-day, and the same for¬ 
ever. While Americans were jubilant over the coming 
alliance with Great Britain, which was to be based 
upon humanitarian principles; while we were denounc¬ 
ing Spanish atrocities and lauding Saxon humanity, 
General Kitchener, marching under the English flag, 
was daily slaughtering the natives of Egypt During 
the first week of September, 1898, while the echo of 
the guns of El Caney, San Juan and Santiago were yet 
reverberating throughout the world, the English army 
massacred twenty-seven thousand men in Eashoda, a 
greater number than the aggregate of Cuban lives de¬ 
stroyed by Spanish bayonets during the three years of 
insurrection in the island. But, of course, the Fashoda 
massacres were perpetrated in the name of humanity 
and civilisation. 

The menials of British aristocracy say that Eng¬ 
land is the most progressive nation on earth and that 


208 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


an alliance cementing the friendship of these two 
Anglo-Saxon countries would result in shedding the 
benign rays of civilization on every land. Yes, let us 
become a party to the iniquities of the Briton; let us 
form a magnificent navy and search the seas for plun¬ 
der; let us create a grand army and drive the angel of 
freedom from savage wilds; let us imitate the ava¬ 
rice of the Norman in selling idols to India, in extend¬ 
ing the opium trade in China. 

Name one country that has ever been civilized by 
the Anglo-Saxon race. Spain has civilized the Philip¬ 
pines, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico and other lands in 
the Western Hemisphere; and English domination has 
perpetuated heathenism and barbarism in every quar¬ 
ter of the globe where the flag of her empire has been 
recognized. 

The daily papers in Cincinnati since the late war 
have frequently commented on the fact that the do¬ 
minion of the Goths has been diminished with the 
centuries as the result of the rebellions against the 
despotic government of Madrid.- This assertion of 
national independence by Spanish colonies proves that 
•the mother-country has enhanced the condition of her 
foreign subjects to such a degree that they are capable 
of appreciating the blessings of liberty; whereas the 
English colonists are so enslaved and degraded by 
British law, sustained by British swords, every moral 
sentiment and political aspiration is so inhumanely 
crushed in its inception, in the bloom of its existence, 
that they live in their vile state of servitude, surren¬ 
dering their most sacred, most inalienable rights to 
their masters without the slightest manifestation of 
reluctance. England is just in her Canadian policy, 
because the proximity of that country to the United 
States secures her immunity from English despotism. 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


209 


Britain would sacrifice her national honor for 
paltry gold. When English usurpation in South 
America aroused the ire of President Cleveland, and 
that stalwart champion of our rights proclaimed his 
message on the Venezuelan boundary question, the 
Court of St. James forthwith apologized, because it 
feared that, in the possibility of war between the two 
nations, its loss would be greater than its gain. When 
President McKinley notified the Court of Madrid to 
withdraw its army from Cuba within thirty days, Spain 
knew well that war with the United States signified 
disaster to the Spanish nation, with the possible anni¬ 
hilation of her army and navy; yet she took up the 
gauntlet, met our host on land and sea, fought gal¬ 
lantly until every hope had vanished, and then surren¬ 
dered her sword to the conqueror and nobly bore the 
burden of defeat. With justice to the land of my birth, 
I am proud to say that she has been magnanimous in 
her triumph, and her generosity to the suppliant foe is 
worthy of eternal admiration, a noble precedent for all 
future victors. 

Our people, as a class, claimed that England was 
unselfish in lending her sympathies and moral support 
to the 'Americans. On several occasions I have im¬ 
periled my patriotism and almost jeopardized my 
cranium by questioning the motives that actuated 
England in the recent 'Spanish-American embroilment. 
It was positively and unhesitatingly declared from 
every house-top that Britain sanctioned the policy of 
our government on purely humanitarian principles. 
We have seen how humanitarian England has been 
since the time that William the Conqueror baptized 
the nation with the blood of Hastings, and established 
the supremacy of the Norman on the rocks of Britain, 
until the closing days of the Nineteenth Century; and 


210 


The Two Kingdoms. 


her domineering spirit will never change until her 
shores are purified from the unhallowed touch of 
royalty. 

England was not disinterested in her attitude of 
friendship for this government, and Chamberlain has 
simply beguiled our country with the deceptive ma¬ 
neuvers of artful diplomacy. The Commercial Tribune 
of Cincinnati, in its issue of the 21st of November, 
1898, had quite a lengthy article on the hostile feeling 
created in the heart of John Bull toward this country 
in her Puerto Rican policy. English papers character¬ 
ized this measure as a mediaeval navigation law; “It 
is a door shut, locked and barricaded.” 

Oh! where is Britain’s pretended love for her 
cousins across the waters, the cousins that have not 
one drop of English blood in their veins; cousins 
whose ancestors were hunted by British gendarmes, 
among the hills of Donegal and along the shores of the 
Shannon and the Black Water; cousins that came 
from the Rhine and the Elbe, whose sires followed 
the kings of Germany to the land of the Saracen and 
fought the swarthy sons of the desert amidst the moun¬ 
tains of Israel? 

England demanded an “open-door” policy in the 
Philippines, and the door shall be opened. 

The war with Spain was declared on humanitarian 
principles, but now it has assumed the nature of a war 
of conquest, and has all the appearance of having been 
waged with the preconceived plan of extending our 
dominions. The annexation of Hawaii was effected 
with the same view. We were at peace with all the 
world, and respected by every nation on the globe. 
There was no necessity for a large navy or a large 
army, for our country was protected from conquering 
hosts by two great seas that laved her eastern and 


The Two Kingdoms. 


21 1 


western shores. Our northern and southern frontiers 
were bounded by people who were glad to have our 
friendship, and the fact that we had no colonial pos¬ 
sessions, we were on terms of amity with every foreign 
power. 

But our policy is materially altered. We have 
determined to extend the dominion of our flag until 
the empire of the Stars and Stripes shall become uni¬ 
versal. Difficulties shall arise with other governments. 
We shall be necessitated to enter into European dis¬ 
putes and quarrels. England will be our ally, and our 
sons will crimson the shores of the East and perish 
amidst the snows of Siberia to exalt the power of the 
Saxon. 

Unless we become pliant tools in the hands of 
British statesmen, and give England the fruit of our 
conquests, the Anglo-American alliance will be 
changed into the Anglo-American war. The British 
lion has already shown his teeth in our policy respect¬ 
ing the lately acquired provinces, and in less than a 
quarter of a century there will be a bloody conflict 
between England and America. 

The retention of Puerto Rico and the Philippines 
is a grand mistake, and the Government of the United 
States will eventually collapse by its ponderous mag¬ 
nitude, like the Imperial City which ruled from the 
foot of the Palatine Hill an empire that extended from 
the shores of the Thames to the Valley of the Jordan. 


212 


The Two Kingdoms. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


TRUSTS. CORPORATIONS. RAIUROADS. ENGLAND 
OWNED BY A FEW MILLIONAIRES. CONDITION OF 
FRANCE IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH 
CENTURIES. FRENCH REVOLUTION THE RESULT OF 
OPPRESSION. SOCIALISM WILL BE INAUGURATED. 
BENEFITS OF SOCIALISM. REVIVAL OF CHRISTIAN¬ 
ITY. PURIFICATION OF CHRISTIANITY. THE REIGN 
OF CHRIST ON EARTH. 


A CCORDING to the late developments in our 
foreign policy, it is evident that the age of 
peace in our country is at an end, and the 
future history of America will be the history of armies 
and navies, the history of carnage and conquest. New 
regions must be subdued and the empire of the Stars 
must be extended. Political corruption is the agency 
in this deleterious innovation. Owing to the multipli¬ 
cation of beneficiaries, positions of emolument are at 
a premium. 

The leading lights of every party are seeking 
compensation for their patriotism in remunerative 
employment, and offices and sinecures must be created 
to meet the requirements of these aspirants. The Re¬ 
publican administration can now dispose of a few car¬ 
loads of political leeches to the Philippines, Cuba and 
Puerto Rico. Lucrative motives will actuate the army 
officers in perpetuating the turbulent condition of 
these conquered provinces, and they will not be remiss 
in the duty which self-interest will impose on them, 


The Two Kingdoms. 


213 


and, of course, the civil authorities will co-operate with 
the military in advancing their mutual trade. 

As time rolls on, and every place of preferment is 
filled, and the office-holding industry declines, from 
our overstock of supply, thus surfeiting the market, 
new fields must be opened to accommodate the output 
of our political factories. Hence war, with all its hor¬ 
rors and all its corruptions, is destined to be the 
essential concomitant of this new era in the great 
American Government. 

What does war signify? It signifies that peace 
must be broken between friendly nations. Hostility, 
says Henry Giles, penetrates to the inmost conscious¬ 
ness of men engaged in war. “It enters into their 
thoughts, their feelings, their opinions, their passions; 
head, heart and conscience share in it; it saturates not 
alone the social and physical man, but the intellectual, 
the moral and the spiritual man.” To express it in a 
few words, war is oppressive, brutal and demoralizing. 

The second cost of war is the demand which it 
makes upon wealth and the injury it does to wealth. 
The war preceding the treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, cost 
one hundred and thirty millions of dollars. The Span¬ 
ish war of 1739 cost two hundred and seventy millions 
of dollars. The war of the Spanish succession cost 
three hundred and eleven millions of dollars. The 
treaty of Paris in 1763 ended a struggle which cost 
five hundred and sixty million dollars. The American 
Revolution cost this country and England nine hun¬ 
dred and thirty million dollars. The war against Na¬ 
poleon cost fifty-eight hundred millions of dollars. 
The French Revolution cost two hundred and eighty 
million dollars. The Crimean war cost forty-five mil¬ 
lion dollars, and the last war in India cost England 
thirty-eight million dollars. 


214 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


But Americans have improved on every other 
movement, and they have likewise improved on war 
expenses. The Hispano-American war cost the Gov¬ 
ernment of the United Statees one million dollars per 
day, and with that fabulous expenditure, the soldiers 
were left to die in camp or on the battlefield from 
neglect, sickness and starvation. If this government 
should ever engage in a contest of vast magnitude, 
extending through a decade or a score of years, where 
she would meet the mighty armies and navies of the 
world, the mints of the earth could not coin sufficient 
gold and silver to defray the expenses of the officers 
at the head of our forces, to say nothing of the ordi¬ 
nary sailor and soldier. 

The next consideration is the loss of life. In the 
battle of Borodino the French army consisted of three 
hundred and twenty thousand men and one hundred 
and four thousand horses. There were slain in that 
engagement forty-two thousand Russians and fifty-two 
thousand French. Two hundred and forty-seven 
thousand sons of the Republic perished amidst the 
snows of Russia, and of that vast army that crossed the 
Niemen, with the purpose of erecting the tricolor on 
the walls of Moscow, only forty thousand returned to 
France. 

The total number of French troops sent to the 
East during the Crimean war, was three hundred and 
nine thousand two hundred and sixty-eight men; of 
whom two hundred thousand entered the hospitals to 
receive medical aid; fifty thousand of whom were 
treated for wounds received in battle, and one hun¬ 
dred and fifty thousand for diseases of various kinds. 
The total mortality was sixty-nine thousand two hun¬ 
dred and twenty-nine, or twenty-two and a half per 
cent., of whom sixteen thousand three hundred and 


The Two Kingdoms. 


2I 5 


twenty died of wounds and nearly fifty-three thousand 
died from diseases. There were more than three times 
the number of fatalities from diseases arising from 
privations and exposure. The mortality among the 
Russians, Turks, English and Scandinavians was 
appalling. 

The ravages of war have been multiplied to an 
alarming extent by the genius of modern invention. 
The Spartans won the decisive battle of Corinth with 
the loss of eight lives., whereas the total sacrifice at 
Gettysburg was sixty thousand. The Rebellion cost 
the Federals three hundred thousand, and the Confed¬ 
erates three hundred and twenty thousand. 

The fourth consideration is the terrible and far- 
reaching evils that follow the disasters of war. “As 
we go from the center we find diversified ramifications, 
that war spreads miseries and afflictions to the re¬ 
motest bounds that are in every way related to it. 
Into homes near it and afar off war carries anxiety, 
difficulty, struggle with reduced means and the bar¬ 
renness of positive destitution. It reduces the rich 
man to bankruptcy; it drives the poor man to despera¬ 
tion. If it drenches with blood the places of its fight¬ 
ing, it waters with tears the secret retirements of life.” 

John Ruskin says that the ordinary motive of war 
is the desire of dominion. This great writer states that 
the head of every community is anxious to ameliorate 
the condition of his dependents, but the ruler of em¬ 
pires dreams only of self-aggrandizement, which he 
seeks at the awful sacrifice of armies and navies. “For 
observe, if there had been indeed in the hearts of rulers 
of great multitudes of men any such conception of 
work for the good of those under their command, as 
there is in the good and thoughtful master of any 
small company of men, not only war for the sake of 


216 


The Two Kingdoms. 


mere increase of power could never take place, but the 
idea of power itself would be entirely altered. Do you 
suppose to think and act even for a million of men, to 
hear their complaints, watch their weaknesses, restrain 
their vices, make laws for them, lead them, day by day, 
to purer life, is not enough for one man’s work? If 
any of us were absolute lord only of a district of a 
hundred miles square, and were resolved on doing our 
utmost for it; making it feed as large a number of 
people as possible; making every clod productive, and 
every rock defensive, and every human being happy; 
should we not have enough on our hands, think you? 
But if the ruler has any other aim than this: if careless 
of the result of interference, he desires only the author¬ 
ity to interfere, and, regardless of what is ill done or 
Well done, cares only that it shall be done at his bid¬ 
ding; if he would rather do two hundred miles space 
of mischief than one hundred miles space of good, of 
course he will try to add to his territory, and to add 
inimitably.” (The Crown of Wild Olives, pp 153-154.) 

Thus spoke the greatest of England’s sons, and 
his condemnation of wars of conquest was intended as 
a censure on the aggressive policy of his mother- 
country. Do you not think that his advice would have 
been beneficial to this nation at the outbreak of the 
late war? Would it not be more prudent, more judi¬ 
cious and more humane for this government to 
provide for the necessities of the starving multitude, 
instead of cursing the land with new miseries, under 
the plea of alleviating the suffering belligerents in 
Cuba ? When the miners went out on a strike in Penn¬ 
sylvania, they were shot down without provocation by 
the officers sent there to preserve peace, and after a 
mock trial the agents of these dastardly deeds were 
acquitted. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


217 


Let this nation develop her vast resources at home 
and give employment to her hungry children that cry 
for bread at every door. Let her defend the laborer 
from the oppressive power of the capitalist; let her 
gladden the lives of the unfortunate, introduce the 
sunshine of happiness into the homes of the sorrowful 
by just and humane legislation, and let the islands of 
the Atlantic and Pacific shift for themselves. 

Under the name of humanity and civilization, this 
world has been polluted with the blackest crimes ever 
conceived in the minds of fiends, that were ever perpe¬ 
trated by the agents of hell. Corruption has cursed 
every government in the world’s history, and it is fast 
corroding the heart of this Republic. 

Let us glance at the history of England. The 
annual amount of taxes levied by William the Con¬ 
queror, beginning with the year 1066, was four hun¬ 
dred thousand pounds; in 1166 it was three hundred 
thousand pounds; in 1266 it was one hundred and 
fifty thousand pounds; in 1366 it was one hundred and 
thirty thousand pounds; in 1466 it was one hundred 
thousand pounds. We see that, as the British nation 
advanced in civilization to a certain degree, the annual 
taxation diminished, and in four hundred years it fell 
from four hundred thousand pounds to one hundred 
thousand pounds. 

The next three hundred years there is a remark- 
able increase. In 1566 the amount was five hundred 
thousand pounds ; in 1666 it was one million eight 
hundred thousand pounds; in 1776 it was seventeen 
millions. These figures are taken from Sir John Sin¬ 
clair’s History of the Revenue. 

How do we account for this great disparity of 
taxes levied in different periods? The taxes levied in 
1776 are one hundred and seventy times in excess of 


2 l8 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


what it was three hundred years previously. Were the 
national expenses one hundred and seventy times 
greater in one period than they were in the other? 
Thomas Paine comments on these figures, and his 
remarks are not very complimentary to the English 
Government. “The difference between the first four 
hundred years-and the last three hundred is so aston¬ 
ishing as to warrant the opinion that the national char¬ 
acter of the English has changed. It would have been 
impossible to have dragooned the former English into 
the excess of taxation that now exists; and when it is 
considered that the pay of the army, the navy and all 
the revenue officers is the same now as it was above a 
hundred years ago, when the taxes were not a tenth 
part of what they are at present, it appears impossible 
to account for the enormous increase and expenditure 
on any other ground than extravagance, corruption 
and intrigue. With the revolution of 1688, and more 
since the Hanover succession, came the destructive 
system of Continental intrigues, and the rage for for¬ 
eign wars and foreign dominion; systems of such se¬ 
cure mystery that the expenses admit of no account; 
a single line stands for millions.” (Rights of Man, pp. 
408,409.) 

History is unequivocal in the declaration that 
England’s national power, England’s army and navy, 
necessary in sustaining her authority in foreign lands, 
have not been an unmixed blessing for the home 
population. William Cobbett says that a wealthy gov¬ 
ernment generally signifies a poor people, because the 
masses are impoverished by onerous taxation essential 
for the maintenance of national power. Paine says 
that every country is afflicted with criminals who could 
easily be reformed with the millions of dollars that are 
superfluously expended on the government. 


Thj$ Two Kingdoms. 219 

I do not wish to fathom the depths of antiquity to 
discover illustrations of reckless expenditure in sup¬ 
port of royalty, and the dire results of such instances 
of legalized robbery. Let us examine the history of 
France during the century preceding the Revolution. 
In that age the people had two obstinate and invincible 
enemies, the kings and the nobles. Louis the Four¬ 
teenth lived in oriental pomp and magnificence. There 
were eighty thousand aristocratic families living in a 
state of inactivity and luxury, and the twenty-four mil¬ 
lions of subjects were kept in the most degrading pov¬ 
erty, giving the fruit of their toil to the supercilious 
nobles that looked upon the proletarian masses with 
contempt and aversion. 

Louis expended two hundred million dollars in 
completing and ornamenting the Palace of Versailles; 
thirty thousand laborers were employed in embellish¬ 
ing the parks, and when the monarch died he left a 
national debt of eight hundred and fifty million dollars. 
The annual expenses during his reign exceeded the 
income by thirty million dollars. 

These vast sums were spent in pandering to the 
passions of the court. Versailles was the rendezvous 
of vice, and those regal halls constantly rang with the 
shouts of revelry. The Trianons were built for the 
favorite mistress of the sovereign. 

Louis the Fifteenth improved upon the profligacy 
of his predecessor. At fourteen he married Marie, 
daughter of Stanislaus, King of Poland. She was dis¬ 
carded for the superior attractions of Madame de 
Mailby, until the latter was supplanted by her sister. 
The star of Madame Tournelle rose resplendently in 
the royal court, and the other mistresses were dis¬ 
missed. The beauty of Mademoiselle Valois and the 
Princess of Conti were next rewarded with the em- 


2 20 


The Two Kingdoms. 


braces of the royal debauchee. Madame Pompadour 
triumphed over all her adversaries in the imperial 
bagnio; and for many years this vile bawd ruled 
France and shaped the policy of the nation. 

Says a historian of the times: “She summoned 
ambassadors before her, and addressed them in the 
style of royalty. She appointed bishops and generals, 
and filled all the most important offices jof the Church 
and State with those who would do her homage. She 
dismissed ministers and created cardinals, declared war 
and made peace. She said to the Abbe de Beris: ‘I 
have all the nobility at my feet, and my lap-dog is 
weary of their fawnings/ ” 

For fifty years France was ruled by prostitutes, 
who lived in the most extravagant luxurv. While 
these iniquities were dishonoring the nation and dis¬ 
gracing humanity, the people were burdened with 
exorbitant taxes to replete the royal exchequer. 

“The minister who invented a new tax was ap¬ 
plauded as a man of genius. The offices of the magis¬ 
trates were sold; judges paid enormous sums for their 
places, and then sold their decisions. Titles were sold, 
making the purchaser one of the privileged classes. 
All the trades and professions were sold. The number 
of trades and offices sold amounted to three hundred 
thousand. An army of two hundred thousand tax- 
gatherers devoured everything. To extort subsidies 
from a starving people, the most cruel expedients were 
adopted. Galleys, gibbets, dungeons and racks were 
called into requisition. When the corn was all gone, 
the cattle were taken. Men, women and children 
yoked themselves to the plow. The population died 
off, and beautiful France was becoming a place of 
graves. No language can describe the dismay in the 
homes of the peasants when the tax-gatherer darkened 


The Two Kingdoms. 


221 


their doors. The seed corn was taken, the cow driven 
off and the pig taken from the pen. Mothers pleaded 
with tears that food might be left their children/' 

These appalling iniquities, intensified with every 
generation, covered the kingdom of the Franks with 
scenes of sorrow and desolation. The people were 
hungry, ignorant, naked, oppressed, and the weight of 
their calamities became so stupendous as time rolled 
on, that the nerves of the nation were stretched to their 
utmost tension; and the masses, goaded to fury by the 
hydra-headed monster that preyed on their heart’s 
blood, rose like a giant against their tyrants, and 
bathed the realm with their blood. 

The French Revolution was the legitimate scion 
of unmitigated persecution, the culmination of wrongs 
that multiplied like insect progenies. The Reign of 
Terror was the just punishment of royal crimes, 
co-operating with the aristocracy in enthralling, de¬ 
grading and starving the multitudinous poor and 
unfortunate. 

The broad chasm between the capitalist and 
laborer, combined with governmental intrigue and 
public corruption, will undoubtedly terminate in dis¬ 
asters far more startling to this country than the deso¬ 
lating cyclone that swept over France and annihilated 
the Bourbons and crimsoned the realm with the blood 
of nobility. 

Our government is very partial to wealth, and 
exceedingly generous in its gifts to extensive corpora¬ 
tions. It gave a grant of forty-seven million acres of 
land to the Northern Pacific Railroad; thirty-five 
millions to the Central Pacific; seven millions to the 
Atlantic and Pacific; and the aggregate of land^ 
granted by the government to railroad corporations is 
one hundred and fifty-four million two hundred and 


222 


The Two Kingdoms. 


one thousand five hundred and eighty-four acres— 
equal in area to the New England and Middle States. 
The constant accumulation of vast fortunes in the pos¬ 
session of the few, at the cost of the sweat and blood of 
the millions, will create in this country a nation of 
paupers, a nation of slaves, governed by an aristocracy 
of wealth. There is but one step from this condition 
to the aristocracy of birth, the aristocracy of blood; 
and the infant generation of to-day will behold the 
enthronization of royalty in the White House and the 
creation of peers throughout this broad Republic. 

I predict that the first king of the United States 
will be an English Jew. We adore the English for 
their blue blood, and we worship the Hebrew for his 
yellow gold. The money power in this country fears 
democracy, for it knows that democracy is the goddess 
of justice and the goddess of liberty, and will 
strengthen the arm of the yeomanry to wield the sword 
and strike the heart of despotism. The millionaires 
have acquired their wealth by illegitimate means, and 
they wish to secure their immunity from the just ag¬ 
gressions of their victims by the power and majesty of 
monarchy, protected by the bayonets of a vast stand¬ 
ing army. 

In another quarter of a century the hopes of the 
Vanderbilts, the Astors and the Goulds will be realized, 
and our daily papers will chronicle the social history 
of American aristocracy and amuse the public with 
elaborate descriptions of the functions given by the 
Duchess of New York, the Countess of Boston and 
the Marchioness of Philadelphia. 

The indifference of Christianity in denouncing the 
crimes of the classes, and providing for the necessities 
of the masses; the co-operation of the government in 
supporting the pretensions of wealthy, influential rob- 


The Two Kingdoms. 


223 


bers, and in legislating in behalf of the privileged few, 
will ultimately result in a reign of blood which shall 
obliterate every line of social demarkation, and create 
a government of liberty, equality and fraternity. 

When the nation is cloyed with deeds of venge¬ 
ance, it will seek means of reconstruction, and, like 
France in the throes of revolution, will plainly see that 
infidelity is the primal cause of misgovernment, pau¬ 
perism, oppression and anarchy. 

It is the spirit of unbelief that fosters pride, ambi¬ 
tion and avarice, and engenders that multitude of evils 
perpetrated in pandering to these passions. If men 
would remember that there is a God above the starry 
vault who will exact an account of every idle thought, 
word and deed; if they would remember that life is 
short, and that blissful immortality will crown the tri¬ 
umph of virtue, and endless torments will afflict the 
notaries who worship at the shrine of passion; if they 
would remember that to deprive the laborer of his 
remuneration is a sin that cries to heaven for venge¬ 
ance ; if they would remember that every drop of 
sweat, every sigh of grief, every agony and every pang 
unjustly caused will call for their condemnation at the 
tribunal of justice, earth would no longer groan under 
the gigantic evils that make the angels weep, but it 
would bloom with every blessing and smile with every 
joy. 

In the awful catastrophe that shall paint this land 
with vermilion hues, men will call upon every force in 
nature, every law in the universe; they will appeal to 
every thought of the soul, to every feeling of the heart, 
to assist them to stem the onward, rolling, seething, 
frothing tide of revolution, anarchy and bloodshed; 
and, as the last means of safety, as the last resort in the 
hour of darkest crime, they will invoke the power of 
Christianity. 


224 The Two Kingdoms. 

The doctrines of the Savior are rapidly losing 
their influence in this age, and especially in this coun¬ 
try. The wealthy imagine that they are independent 
of the Creator, because they are able to administer to 
every corporal desire of their being; and this to them, 
is the only beatitude. The poor think that God is not 
just in permitting the minority to trample the majority 
in the dust, in permitting the multitude to die of 
hunger on the wayside, while luxury dwells in so many 
palaces; and as justice is an essential attribute of the 
Divinity, they conclude there is no Supreme Being, who 
is the author of the dazzling orbs that roll through 
those azure fields above; that life is a dream of deep¬ 
est mystery; that the jaw of death is the abyss of nihil¬ 
ity. These thoughts, permeating the masses, year by 
year, will ere long materialize in the desertion of 
Christian temples, in the sterility of Christian doctrine, 
in the growth of atheism, now so prevalent in this 
land. The uneducated millions, looking upon the 
Bible as a spurious production and religion as a hu¬ 
man invention, begotten for the purpose of deception, 
will identify the teachings of the Church with the 
crimes of individual members, and rising in revolt 
against the supposed pernicious tendencies of Chris¬ 
tianity, will not sheathe the sword till the altar and the 
throne are laid in ruins. 

But order shall be brought out of chaos; the 
Church shall be purified in the crucible of suffering; 
laws shall be established on principles of justice; men 
will realize the fact that all men are equal; that all have 
equal rights; that despotism is the creation of ignor¬ 
ance and vice, and that it withers in the light of reason, 
in the atmosphere of virtue; and, understanding the 
full significance of democracy, they will form a gov¬ 
ernment of the people, for the people, and by the 
people. 


225 


The Two Kingdoms. 

Christianity will enter into a new era of existence, 
and the human and divine law will co-operate in estab¬ 
lishing an ideal republic, a republic of common inter¬ 
ests, common property, a republic of Christian social¬ 
ism. 

This is the only panacea for all the ills of modern 
society, the only means of curbing the power of mon¬ 
opolies and corporations, the only way to provide for 
the necessities of the poor, the only way to give em¬ 
ployment to the idle, the only w&y to decentralize 
wealth and to diffuse every facility of procuring peace 
and happiness for millions of desolate homes and 
broken hearts. 

I believe that the State should own all property, 
lands, railroads, mills, mines, and every other indus¬ 
try now under the control of private individuals. I 
believe that the vast wealth accumulated by the oper¬ 
ation of these industries is the wealth of the people, and 
not the wealth of corporations. I believe that, if the 
stockholders would be satisfied with five per cent, divi¬ 
dends, and expend the surplus revenue in augmenting 
the wages of the mechanics, there would be no strikes, 
no discontent, but both the laborer and the capitalist 
would be prosperous and happy. 

The State can conduct public business with econ¬ 
omy and success, as illustrated in the postal service. 
This mode of government was enjoined by God upon 
the chosen people when they took possession of 
Canaan. The land was equally divided among the 
twelve tribes, and stringent measures were adopted to 
prevent the individual amassment of wealth, and the 
formation of distinct classes, by the institution of the 
jubilee year, with the reversion of all alienated prop¬ 
erty to the original possessors. This system ever pre¬ 
served the state of equality among the Jewish families, 


226 


The Two Kingdoms. 


and effectually prevented the creation of vast estates 
to “the danger of national independence and the es¬ 
tablishment of a great feudal oligarchy.” 

Robert Blatchford says:* “Why nationalize the 
land and instruments of production? To save waste, 
to save panics, to avert trade depressions, famines, 
strikes and congestion of industrial centers.” (Merrie 
England, p. no.) According to this authority, in 
England there are generally seven hundred thousand 
persons out of employment. There are eight hun¬ 
dred thousand paupers; eight millions of people 
are on the borders of starvation; and twenty 
millions are poor. Thirty thousand people own the 
land and capital of the kingdom ; only one and one-half 
million get more than fifteen dollars per week. The 
average income is only twenty-five cents per day. The 
gross national earnings are $6,750,000,000 per annum. 
The amount paid in rent is $220,000,000. The amount 
paid in interest is $1,250,000,000. The salaries of 
middle classes and profits of employers are $1,800,000,- 
000. The laborers produce six billion, seven hundred 
and fifty millions of wealth. Rent interest and the em¬ 
ployers and middle classes take four billion, two hun¬ 
dred and fifty millions, leaving the producers of the 
wealth two billion, five hundred millions. If we cal¬ 
culate the number of laborers and the number of em¬ 
ployers and middle class, we ascertain that four billion, 
five hundred and sixty millions go to one-eighth of 
the population, and two billion, five hundred millions 
go to seven-eighths of the population; or, in other 
words, one-eighth receives almost twice as much as 
seven-eighths. The middle and upper classes get an¬ 
nually $950 each, whereas the laborer receives only 
$80 annually. The British Islands belong to less than 
one-half millions of people. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


227 


Competition is one of the greatest evils of the 
age. Robert .Blatchford forcibly exemplifies this in 
Merrie England.. The author says that the rule of 
trade throughout the entire commercial world is that 
every seller shall obtain as much as he can for his 
articles, and that every buyer shall purchase them as 
cheaply as possible. Suppose I were cultivating a 
piece of ground with a wooden spade, and I could do 
as much work in one hour with an iron spade as I 
could do in two hours with a wooden spade. The iron 
spade is worth as much to me as the labor spared. 
With a wooden spade I can raise two bushels of wheat 
in a year, and with an iron spade I can raise twenty 
bushels of wheat in a year. If the iron spade will last 
two years, it will pay me to give eighteen bushels of 
wheat for it, since I can thereby increase the product 
of my labor by twenty bushels. Therefore, the iron 
spade is worth eighteen bushels of wheat to me. If 
there were a million of iron spades instead of one, that 
would not depreciate the value of an iron spade to me. 

Now what is the value of the spade to the man 
who makes it? The value is regulated by the labor 
spent upon making it. If he could raise twenty bush¬ 
els of wheat while he is making one spade, then the 
value of that spade is worth twenty bushels of wheat; 
but if he could make ten spades during the time re¬ 
quired for raising twenty bushels of wheat, then the 
spade is worth two bushels of wheat. Now the day’s 
labor of the farmer is worth the day’s labor of the 
smith, and if the latter can make ten spades while the 
former is raising twenty bushels of wheat, then the 
smith should sell his spade for two bushels of wheat. 
But if there were only one smith, and he would not sell 
his spade for less than eighteen bushels of wheat, the 
farmer would profit slightly by the exchange, and he 


228 


The Two Kingdoms. 


would certainly yield to the demand of the smith; and, 
under these circumstances, the smith would grow rich. 

But as there is only one farmer, the smith is com¬ 
pelled to buy wheat from him, or raise his own wheat, 
and in that case, a fair arrangement can be made, di¬ 
viding the sixteen bushels, the difference between the 
worth of the spade to the farmer and the cost of the 
spade to the smith, each one taking eight bushels, or 
the farmer giving ten bushels for the spade, and there¬ 
by each makes a profit of eight bushels by the trans¬ 
action. 

If there are two farmers and only one smith, the 
former enter into competition, and the latter being a 
monopolist in his business, can afford to raise the price 
of spades. If there were two smiths and only one 
farmer, the latter would employ the advantages of 
monopoly at the cost of the former. If the farmer 
owned all the land, the smith would be necessitated to 
accept his price for spades or starve. 

A proprietor of a piece of land wants a laborer to 
plow, and there are two men seeking employment. 
One offers to work for a dollar a day. The other 
has no means of sustenance, and to secure sale dor his 
labor, he consents to work for fifty cents a day; the 
former must come down to thirty-five cents, thereby 
making a present of sixty-five cents a day to his em¬ 
ployer. 

Instead of reducing the price of labor to thirty-five 
cents, the employer should engage both men. and give 
each fifty cents a day. In this way the owner of the 
piece of land would get the worth of his money in 
labor, and there being two men to do the work of one, 
their hours of labor would be reduced from ten to five. 

Blatchford gives another illustration. He no¬ 
ticed one day in a railway carriage a man wasting 


The Two Kingdoms. 


229 


matches. A short time previously to that, he had 
read of the low prices and long hours of match and 
match-box makers. Why is it that men in that indus¬ 
try worked so hard and got such paltry compensation ? 
Because matches are so cheap that manufacturers 
can not afford to pay fair wages. People waste 
matches because they are cheap. Double the price of 
matches, and there will be no waste, and yet the con¬ 
sumer will not pay any more, for he can save by econ¬ 
omy what he loses in price. One hundred men are 
working in a match factory at one dollar a day. 
Matches are sold at five cents per box. Charge ten 
cents per box for matches, and the manufacturer can 
afford to give his employees two dollars per day for 
their labor. 

But the consumers, paying twice the original price 
for matches, will save the half that they formerly wast¬ 
ed when they were cheap, and the demand for matches 
being greatly reduced, demand for laborers will be 
likewise reduced, and half the employees will be dis¬ 
charged. Let them continue at one dollar a day, and 
diminish the hours of labor; or let half the laborers in 
the match factory seek employment in other fields. Is 
that not a better method than destroying matches as 
fast as they are made for the sake of giving employ¬ 
ment to men at very low wages ? 

Machinery is intensifying the difficulties that 
harass the laboring element, by an over-production of 
every article of use and consumption; and machinery 
is the property of the capitalist, and adds to his lux¬ 
ury and wealth alone. That which should be an as¬ 
sistance to the working class, by facilitating the accom¬ 
plishment of their duties, has become a potent agency 
in reducing the demand for labor, and therefore, the 
price of the laborer. 


230 


The Two Kingdoms. 


The chasm between the rich and the poor is wid¬ 
ening day by day, and the situation is fast assuming 
a menacing aspect. What are we to do? Socialism 
is the only remedy for the existing evils. It has been 
estimated by Mr. Blatchford that one-third of the 
people produce enough necessaries for all. This be¬ 
ing the case, if all would labor three hours per day, 
they could produce as much as one-third laboring nine 
hours per day. 

Let the government take charge of the land, for it 
is common property. Nothing can become personal 
property except that which has been produced by the 
labor of the individual. Land has been created by 
God for the common use of humanity. Everything 
that is essential for human existence, such as light and 
air, is common property. 

We are justified in appropriating the fruit of land, 
as we are justified in using light and air; but the sub¬ 
stance itself does not belong to man, and can not be 
appropriated. More than two thousand years ago, 
Lycurgus, the renowned legislator, introduced this idea 
into the government of Sparta. He found a prodi¬ 
gious inequality arising from the concentration of all 
the land and wealth in the possession of a few, while 
the masses were the victims of extreme indigence. 
He was determined to extirpate the evils of insolence, 
avarice, ambition and luxury, on one side, and pov¬ 
erty, misery and crime, on the other; and he influ¬ 
enced the community to cancel all claims of property, 
and to consent to a new distribution of wealth. Those 
who were anxious to obtain distinction, could accom¬ 
plish this desire by excelling in virtue, and no other 
differences were left between them, says Plutarch, but 
the dishonor of vice and the praise of virtue. 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


231 


His plan was adopted, and the territory of Sparta 
was divided into nine thousand lots, and the rest of 
Laconia was divided into thirty thousand lots. Each 
family received a lot, which was capable of producing 
annually eighty-two bushels of grain, besides a quan¬ 
tity of oil and wine. These products were amply suf¬ 
ficient for every domestic necessity, and the Spartans 
were satisfied with this state of affairs, and the com¬ 
munity was prosperous and happy. 

Lycurgus next attempted to divide all personal ef¬ 
fects, or movable possessions; and the proud families 
of Sparta revolting against the idea of losing their 
gaudy ornamentations, the legislator had recourse to a 
stratagem. He accomplished a complete financial rev¬ 
olution by the demonetization of gold and silver, and 
introduced an iron currency in place of the precious 
metals. The value of this coin was so depreciated, 
that ten minae, or a sum equivalent to four hundred 
dollars, would fill'a room. This currency was not 
recognized in any other part of Greece, and hence it 
became useless in the commercial world. The Spar¬ 
tans having no money practically, the importation of 
precious articles and wares employed in personal and 
domestic adornment, absolutely ceased. The iron 
coin being very cumbersome, besides its depreciated 
value as a medium of exchange, there was no motive 
to hoard it, and “many kinds of injustice ceased in 
Lacedaemon.” 

Plutarch writes in his Lives of Eminent Men: 
“Who would steal or take a bribe, who would defraud 
or rob, when he could not conceal his booty, when he 
could not be dignified by the possession of it, nor, if 
cut in pieces, be served by its use. There were not 
even to be found in all their country, either sophists, 
wandering fortune-tellers, keepers of infamous houses, 


232 The; Two ’Kingdoms. 

or dealers in gold or silver trinkets, because there was 
no money. Thus luxury losing by degrees the means 
that cherished and supported it, died away of itself; 
even they who had great possessions had no advan¬ 
tage from them, since they could not be displayed in 
public, but must lie useless in unregarded repositor¬ 
ies.” Indeed, the institution was such a potential an¬ 
tidote to the spirit of avarice and luxury that, for many 
generations, the Spartans opposed the amassment of 
wealth, and when a young man, forgetting the laws of 
Lycurgus, purchased a vast estate, he was heavily 
fined. 

To complete his triumph over the spirit of luxury, 
the Spartan legislator enacted that public tables should 
be prepared, where the entire community should as¬ 
semble for their repasts; and domestic tables were pro¬ 
hibited by law. When one did not give evidence of 
appetite at the public repast, he was openly accused of 
intemperance and gluttony for having violated the 
legal regulation by taking food and drink at home. 
This was an efficacious remedy to the growth of pride 
and luxury, and, also, an economical mode of pro¬ 
viding for the corporal necessities of the community. 

This idea is beautifully illustrated by Robert 
Blatchford in Merrie England. Ket us take a com¬ 
munity consisting of one hundred families. Now it is 
necessary to have a hundred cooks, a hundred kitch¬ 
ens, a hundred dining rooms. By having one large 
table, with a large kitchen and a large dining hall, we 
can provide for the hundred families with one-half the 
expense and one-tenth the labor. The extra money 
and extra labor required for the support of one hun¬ 
dred distinct households can be very profitably ap¬ 
plied to some other industry. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


233 


So much has been said on the means of improv¬ 
ing humanity, of eradicating the evils of wealth and 
poverty, by great men, that it is with diffidence that I 
speak on the question, knowing well that all my ideas 
on political economy have long ago been presented 
to the world, in such charming language, that a reiter¬ 
ation of those ideas in the homely diction of a tyro, 
would detract from their merits. Volney, Fourier, 
Martineau, Kay, Godwin, Wesley, Franklin, Carey, 
Price, Fenelon, Turgot, Fortesque, Smith, Mill, 
George, Carlyle, Ely and Kid—these are but a few of 
the hundreds of illustrious men who have expressed 
their views on the labor question, and have endeavored 
to solve the social problem. 

The plan of Eycurgus, adopted by Blatchford and 
others of his school, meets with my hearty approval. 
Let the government have control of all the means of 
producing wealth. Let it divide the community into 
mechanics and agriculturists. A certain number of 
the latter could raise enough corn, wheat, and other 
necessary articles of consumption. A certain number 
could make shoes for the community; a certain num¬ 
ber could make clothes. A public storehouse could 
be established where the farmer could exchange his 
produce for clothing; where the tailor could exchange 
his garments for bread; where the smith could ex¬ 
change his plows for shoes. The State can deter¬ 
mine the relation of these articles according to the 
labor required in producing them. 

The Government might further simplify matters 
by imposing on every family the obligation of deposit¬ 
ing a certain amount of wares in the common store, 
with the right of taking from the same a certain 
amount of other articles. For instance, each farmer 
must contribute one hundred bushels of wheat, ninety 


234 


The Two Kingdoms. 


bushels of corn, fifty pounds of meat, to the public 
warehouse; and, in compensation for these articles, he 
may take ten suits of clothes and ten pairs of shoes. 

In a community of this nature, where every one is 
a toiler, the hours of labor would be reduced about 
two-thirds. Allowing eight hours for rest and four 
hours, at most, for work, each laborer would have 
twelve hours of leisure every day, which he could de¬ 
vote to mental exercise. 

There would be no necessity for lawyers, for pri¬ 
vate property being entirely abolished, there would be 
no civil litigations. Crime originates in the cultivation 
of the passions. Pride, avarice, ambition, luxury and 
gluttony are stimulated and fomented by the desire of 
personal aggrandizement, by the accumulation of 
wealth, by private ownership. Abolish the right of in¬ 
dividual possession, and who would steal, who would 
rob, who would be envious of his neighbor, who would 
murder for the sake of lucre ? Abolish the right of in¬ 
dividual possession, and you annihilate the fortress of 
Satan, demolish the altar of iniquity, and exalt the 
throne of justice, and fortify the reign of virtue. Reg¬ 
ulate the diet of the community, by legal enactments, 
or by the establishment of a public table, and the crime 
of gluttony will be unknown, the saloons will perish, 
and its concomitant, the gambling den, will pass away. 
Give every man, woman and child the means of sub¬ 
sistence, and the altar of Hymen will be thronged by 
the youth of the land, and carnal debaucheries, seduc¬ 
tions and prostitutions will cease forever. 

Money is the greatest curse of civilization. The 
saloon, the gambling den, the brothel, the vulgar the¬ 
ater, the frauds and deceptions that are daily prac¬ 
ticed, are all the product of pecuniary considerations. 
In a republic as I have faintly outlined, money would 


The Two Kingdoms. 


235 


have no utility, and all the evils that originate in the 
desire of amassing gold, would be utterly destroyed. 

This system of government would simplify law. 
Difficulties arising between neighbors would be ad¬ 
judicated by arbiters selected either by the govern¬ 
ment or by the interested parties. The number of 
officials would likewise be enormously reduced, and 
the medical profession would not be so frequently 
called into requisition, since many of the maladies that 
afflict humanity in our age, are the essential results of 
luxury and poverty. The one engenders disease by 
the consumption of rich food and riotous living; the 
other produces a train of physical disorders by priva¬ 
tion of proper nourishment and wholesome Pure 

food of the simplest kind is the best means of promot¬ 
ing health. 

But how would the public officials and physicians 
and other indispensable factors provide for their sus¬ 
tenance? Being State agents, they would be entitled 
to draw from the public warehouse in remuneration 
for their services. 

Some opponents of socialism claim that it would 
destroy every incentive to progress; it would impede 
intellectual activity, for men would not invent ma¬ 
chines for the advancement of productions; men would 
not devote their time to the study of science; men 
would not imperil their lives amidst the icebergs of 
the Arctic seas, or the wilds of unknown regions, ex¬ 
cept you entice them with the promise or the hope of 
lucre. 

Avarice is not the foundation of those great deeds 
that have encircled the history of nations with a halo 
of glory. Men in every age have achieved more for 
the sake of honor than for the sake of wealth. The 
members of the British Parliament are not recom- 


236 


The Two Kingdoms. 


pensed for their labor, and the argument advanced 
against the payment of salaries to those who are called 
to occupy that position, is, that men pf talent will make 
nobler sacrifices for honor than for money. Every 
seat in the House of Commons is filled by men of the 
highest integrity and the ablest caliber, for none but 
men of that character will seek unremunerative em¬ 
ployment. 

Disraeli says, in his Curiosities of Literature, 
“that fortune rarely condescends to be the companion of 
genius; others find a hundred by-roads to her palace; 
there is but one open, and that a very insignificant 
one, for men of letters. Even in these enlightened 
times, such have lived in obscurity while their reputa¬ 
tion was widely spread, and have perished in poverty 
while their works have enriched the bopk-sellers.” 

Then the author gives a brief account of literary 
mendicants. Xylander sold his notes on Dion Cassius 
for the price of a dinner. Cervantes, the immortal 
genius of Spain, author of Don Quixote, was fre¬ 
quently in direst need. Camoens, the noble pride of 
Portugal, was deprived of the barest necessities, and 
died in a hospital at Lisbon. Tasso, the glory of Italy, 
was compelled to borrow money from his friends to 
pay his current expenses. Ariosto was the recipient of 
a house from Alphonso, the only property that he ever 
owned. Cardinal Bentivoglio lived in distressful pov¬ 
erty all his life, and was compelled, before his death, to 
sell his palace to satisfy his creditors. Du Ryer, a 
famous French poet, sold his verses for one cent a line, 
and owing to this paltry remuneration, he was con¬ 
strained to work for his daily bread, and to live in a 
most humble manner with an obscure villager. Vau- 
gelas, the most polished writer of France, Racine, 
Boileau, Corneille, Dryden, Purchas, Rushworth, au- 


The Two Kingdoms. 


237 


thor of Historical Collections, Rymer, collector of 
Foedera, Simon Ockley, a learned student in Oriental 
languages, the poet Spenser, Dr. Edmund Castell, and 
Le Sage, were victims of poverty, and yet they have 
enriched the world with brilliant conceptions, and 
their names are inscribed on the column of immortal 
fame. 

Goldsmith sold the Vicar of Wakefield for a small 
sum to pay for his lodgings in a miserable garret in 
London. Milton wrote Paradise Lost for forty dol¬ 
lars. 

Blatchford has justly remarked that the prospect 
of wealth does not inspire Hamlets and Laocoons, 
steam-engines, and printing-presses. Wealth did not 
stimulate such men as Socrates, Watt, Darwin, Turner, 
Angelo, Raphael, Mozart, Shakespeare, Columbus, 
Galileo, Caxton, Gladstone and Carlyle. 

The greatest artists, poets, musicians, navigators, 
scientists, inventors; men who have led the world up 
the dizzy heights of learning; men who have lived in 
communion with Nature ; who have studied the his¬ 
tory of the stars, the laws of the universe, had but one 
dream, and that dream was the fond hope of elevating 
'humanity with the knowledge of their researches, with 
the product of their thought, and in return for their 
labors, to receive the applause of an appreciative 
world. 

Every man has some kind of ambition, either no¬ 
ble or ignoble, and his environments create, stimulate, 
and characterize this ambition. The untutored sav- 
age glories in physical strength and courage; the ath¬ 
lete is proud of his pugilistic skill; the warrior is elated 
with bloody victories; the orator rejoices when he has 
thrilled the multitude; the statesman loves to hear His 
name connected with great national movements; the 


238 


The Two Kingdoms. 


artist reads with delight that his works are attracting 
the admiration of connoisseurs. Take from the states¬ 
man his learning, and place him among a nation of 
pugilists, and he will cultivate his muscular strength 
that he might cover himself with the laurels of victory 
in fistic encounters. Under favorable circumstances 
the orator might become a champion marksman, and 
the painter or the poet might glory in his skill as an 
archer, and challenge the roving Indian to a contest 
with the bow and arrow. 

Money is the most potent factor of the age, and it 
is an object of ambitions to millions, especially those of 
the vulgar herd who could never acquire distinction by 
the force of genius. Moreover, money begets pride, 
avarice and many other evils. From a feeling of inse¬ 
curity about the future, and a desire of placing them¬ 
selves and families in a state of independence, men be¬ 
gin to economize, and gradually to accumulate wealth. 
When they have amassed a considerable fortune, they 
emerge from the obscurity of their origin, and begin to 
acquire some importance in the social world. They 
can now live in handsome residences, afford to keep 
servants and carriages, give soirees and levees, and 
are looked upon as rising stars in the social firmament. 

The idea dawns upon them that more wealth 
would insure prominence in the local aristocracy. The 
most unscrupulous means are employed to accomplish 
this object. They take advantage of laborers engaged 
in their service, speak about the stringency of the 
times which compels them to reduce the wages of 
their employees, lend money to creditors at exorbitant 
rates, foreclose mortgages, and virtually appropriate 
the property of those who are in their power. They 
must build palaces and give grand functions, otherwise 
they will be ignored by the four hundred. The poor 


The Two Kingdoms. 


239 


man may cry for bread on their doorsteps; the wail 
of the widow may echo through their palatial halls; 
the orphan may seek for the crumbs that fall from 
their tables, but their ears are deaf to the voice of sor¬ 
row, their eyes are blind to the tears of grief. They 
see only the gilded castle, the merry throng that gath¬ 
ers around the festive board of luxury, the world of 
pleasure and fashion, the tinsel pageantry, the gaudy 
decoration, and everything that can administer to vul¬ 
gar pride, avarice, ambition and vanity. 

Annihilate money and you turn the thoughts of 
men into other channels; their ambition seeks con¬ 
quests in other atenues. Destroy money, and virtue 
and learning will be the only incentives to renown, and 
competition being generalized by the admission of 
every child of our race, the struggle will be intensified, 
and the results will culminate in the advancement of 
the world in moral and mental excellence, the only 
standard of true greatness, the only possessions that 
have aggrandized individuals and glorified nations. 
Schools will arise by the personal exertion of every 
member of the commonwealth; professors will devote 
their time to the education of youth for no other re¬ 
muneration than public thanks. Honor shall adorn 
the brow of genius, and men of every rank will strive 
to win laurels in the field of lore. 

As each individual will have, at least, twelve hours 
of leisure daily, every person of the community will 
become a student. Not only will this rivalry produce 
stupendous effects among the members of the social 
government, but the achievements of one nation will 
incite the spirit of emulation in other nations; and thus 
marching together, they will follow the eagle of 
progress, and the angel of virtue to grand and glorious 
triumphs. 


240 


The Two Kingdoms. 


Before the end of the Twentieth Century the civil¬ 
ized world will be convulsed with the throes of revolu¬ 
tion, and the organized governments of the earth will 
be annihilated; and socialism, with all its blessings, 
will arise upon the ruins of despotism. At first the 
communistic government will be imperfect. Perhaps 
it will require five hundred years to make it a complete 
success in every country inhabited by the Caucasian 
race. Religion will flourish under the new regime; for 
all the vices that have impeded the progress of Chris¬ 
tianity having been annihilated, and virtue and learning 
being the only objects of human ambition, men will 
vie with each other to acquire prominence in the pos¬ 
session of those characteristics. To relieve the suffer¬ 
ings of the unfortunate, to alleviate the sorrows of the 
afflicted, to wipe away the tear from the eye of wretch¬ 
edness, to disseminate the light of the Gospel, to incul¬ 
cate the precepts of morality, to instruct the ignorant, 
and refine the manners of the uncultured, to modify 
the fierce temperament of the barbarian, and to civilize 
the benighted savage, will enlist the services of the 
great and noble in every socialistic commonwealth. 
National alliances will be formed for the purpose of 
Christianizing heathen tribes and pagan races. Prob¬ 
ably another period of five hundred years may elapse 
before a complete conquest of the globe is achieved, 
and the Millennium will dawn upon the world, about 
three thousand years from the birth of Christ. 

Toward the close of the fourth millenary from the 
Redemption, Anti-Christ will appear, for the Bible 
states that he will come at the end of Christ’s reign 
upon earth, which will be a period of a thousand years. 
It is impossible to compute the duration of humanity 
prior to the Christian era owing to the imperfect 
chronology of antiquity, but the best authorities will 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


241 


support the opinion that eight thousand years passed 
from the creation of Adam to the birth of the Savior. 
These figures will tally with the discoveries of science 
in the field of archaeology. Adding four thousand 
years from the establishment of Christianity to the end 
of the world, we have a period of twelve thousand 
years for the life of humanity upon earth. 

The number twelve is used in Sacred Scriptures 
to convey the idea of universality. There were twelve 
tribes of Israel, which signified the totality of the 
chosen people, and there were twelve apostles of the 
New Testament, which signified all the apostles in the 
universal Church. In the last days, before the de¬ 
struction of the world, an angel shall be deputed to 
sign the children of God on their foreheads; and 
twelve thousand shall be signed of all the tribes; and 
this constitutes the full number of the elect. The dura¬ 
tion of human existence shall be twelve thousand 
years. As there is no biblical chronology according 
to Baldwin, one of the best authorities on archaeology, 
we can premise that four thousand years passed away 
from the Creation to the Deluge; four thousand from 
the Deluge to the Redemption; and four thousand 
shall complete the Christian era; and thus the world 
will end about twenty-one hundred years from the 
present time. 


242 


The Two Kingdoms. 


CHAPTER IX. 

ANTI-CHRIST. MIRACLES. PRODIGIES. BEAST SIGNI¬ 
FIES SECULAR POWER. THE SEVEN HEADS ARE SEVEN 
RELIGIONS, AND THE TEN HORNS ARE TEN KING¬ 
DOMS. POSSIBILITIES AND FUTURE GLORY OF ASIA. 
ANTI-CHRIST SHALL REIGN IN THE TEMPLE OF SOLO¬ 
MON. HIS REIGN SHALL LAST THREE YEARS AND SIX 
MONTHS. 

T HE age of Anti-Christ will close the reign of the 
Millennium. During a period of one thousand 
years Satan shall be bound, so that he shall not 
seduce the nations of the earth. This shall be a season 
of virtue, peace and joy. Iniquity will no longer sad¬ 
den the heart of humanity, and darken the history of 
the world. Though the power of fiendish spirits shall 
be conquered, yet evil will lurk in secret places, and 
toward the close of that blissful era, the pride of the 
intellect and of the heart will unfurl the standard of 
revolt against the kingdom of Christ upon earth, and 
persecute the Church and the children that have been 
begotten in her womb and nurtured at her breast. 

St. Paul writes to the Thessalonians: “Let no 
man deceive you by any means ; for unless there comes 
a revolt first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son 
of perdition who opposeth, and is lifted up above all' 
that is called God, or is worshiped, so that he sitteth 
in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were 
God. And now you know what withholdeth that he 


The Two Kingdoms. 


243 


may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of in¬ 
iquity already worketh; only that he who now holdeth, 
do hold, until he be taken out of the way. And then 
that wicked one shall be revealed, whom the Lord 
Jesus shall kill with the spirit of his mouth, and shall 
destroy with the brightness of his coming; him, whose 
coming is according to the working of Satan, in all 
powers and signs and lying wonders, and in all seduc¬ 
tion of iniquity to them that perish; because they re¬ 
ceive not the love of the truth, that they might be 
saved. Therefore, God shall send them the operation 
of error to believe a lie.” (2nd Thess., 2nd chap.) 

The Apostle of the Gentiles here informs us that 
the “mystery of iniquity already worketh,” and inti¬ 
mates that there was a special reason why the spirit 
of evil should not make a revelation of itself at that 
particular time. Undoubtedly the cause of this clan- 
destinity was the general permeation of Christian 
thought among the multitude, and the constant tri¬ 
umph of the Church in the conversion of pagan na¬ 
tions. It would have been impossible, especially in 
communities entirely Christian, for the agents of Satan 
to create a revolt against the empire of the Gospel. 
Nevertheless the emissaries of hell were employed in 
disseminating the seed of error which would eventually 
fructify in open rebellion against the divinity of Christ 
and his holy mission. 

During the Millennium, when the heart of the 
world is imbued with divine love, the vicegerents of 
Satan will operate clandestinely, until the time is ripe 
for the public proclamation of their sinister designs 
and the application of their demoniacal devices. He 
shall appear in all power and signs and lying wonders* 
Jesus says that those false Christs and false prophets 
“shall show great signs and wonders to deceive, if 


The Two Kingdoms. 


2 44 

possible, even the elect.” This leads to the discus¬ 
sion of miracles upon which Christianity has been 
established. 

When the prophecies of Israel were realized in the 
birth of the Messiah, the Jews, so long accustomed to 
supernatural evidence in support of their creed, looked 
for signs in corroboration of the divine character of 
the new doctrine. Although Jesus had cured the blind 
and the deaf and the lame, and recalled departed spirits 
to their corporal habitations, yet he ever referred to the 
miracle of the Resurrection, and emphatically desig¬ 
nated his triumph over the grave as the confirmation of 
his divinity. In that, he performed the grandest mir¬ 
acle in the history of the world. Those who have pre¬ 
tended to be messengers from the throne of God to 
the human race, have endeavored to substantiate their 
claims with the exercise of miraculous power. Hence 
it becomes necessary to examine the nature of mira¬ 
cles. 

A miracle is an event, discernible by the senses, 
which exceeds the force of nature, or is an exception 
to the natural law, in a particular case, by divine inter¬ 
vention. To resuscitate a corpse which has been de¬ 
posited in the tomb for several days, to reanimate a 
decomposed 1 body with the spirit of life, would be a 
miraculous event of the purest type. 

Moreover, to perform an act without employing 
the requisite means, as to lift a heavy weight by a mere 
command, to heal a malady with the utterance of a 
few words, is a miracle. In these latter illustrations, 
there is no proportion between the means employed 
and the end accomplished. A body can be raised by 
the exercise of force, and a disease can be eradicated 
by the application of medicine; but there is no power 
in the human voice to effect one or the other. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


2 45 


We must draw a close distinction between a mir¬ 
acle and a prodigy. The latter is some phenomenal 
occurrence which surpasses our understanding, or 
which is done without any apparent cause. Now, as 
the laws of nature are diverse and intricate, many 
events may be accomplished by the agency of some 
latent force with which we are totally unacquainted. 

Only the Creator can perform miracles, for since 
they are exceptions to natural laws, or occurrences 
that exceed the force of nature, they originate with a 
power that is not subject to nature. However, God 
may delegate this power to his creatures, who are au¬ 
thorized to act in his name. 

In the Ancient Testament we read that Aaron 
threw down his rod, and it became a serpent, and the 
magicians of Egypt also threw down their rods and 
they were changed into serpents. The first case was 
an exercise of miraculous power, for transubstantiation 
requires a creative agency. Between nihility and 
reality there is an infinite space, and Omnipotence 
alone can span this chasm. The nature of a rod is 
entirely distinct from the nature of a serpent, and all 
the rods in the world can not make a serpent. There¬ 
fore, when the lifeless rod was replaced by the scaly 
serpent, there was a passage from nonenity to entity, 
and hence the change of the substance of one into the 
substance of the other was equivalent to creation, or, in 
philosophical language, it was creation ex nihilo sui. 

But did not the pagan magicians imitate the di¬ 
vine messengers? We can not for a moment accept 
the opinion that God would endow the apostles of in¬ 
iquity with the seal of Omnipotence, and, therefore, the 
stupendous feats performed by the Egyptian enchant¬ 
ers were either deceptions or prodigies. It is possible 
that the supposed transformation was an ocular delu- 


246 


The Two Kingdoms. 


sion. If we reject this theory, then we must explain 
the phenomenon by attributing it to the force of magic. 
The magicians, assisted by diabolical power, could 
have dextrously disposed of the rod, and with the 
rapidity of thought, transported a serpent from the 
jungles of Africa. 

Again, we read that Jesus was taken up into a 
very high mountain, and the devil showed him all the 
kingdoms of the earth. As there were no high moun¬ 
tains in the vicinity of Jerusalem, we must presume that 
Satan conveyed Christ to some lofty eminence, such 
as Mount Everest, or that he instantaneously created 
a gigantic elevation, by collecting substances from re¬ 
mote parts of the earth, and forming, with them, a 
colossal mass. The latter hypothesis is more plausi¬ 
ble, for the reason that there is no elevation on the 
globe that commands a view of all the kingdoms of the 
earth. 

Perhaps the author of the Gospel refers to the 
civilized countries of that age. Even that supposition 
would include a territory extending from the region 
where the Atlantic flings its snowy billows upon the 
sandy beach, to the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, 
and an elevation of several hundred miles would be re¬ 
quired to bring that vast tract of land within the ken of 
the human eye. As there is no mountain on earth hav¬ 
ing that altitude, it is necessary to accept the opinion 
that the eminence where Jesus was transported, was 
formed by an instantaneous accumulation of pre-ex¬ 
isting material. 

Diabolical power exceeds every natural agency. 
Lucifer was the highest angel that adorned the royal 
throne. As the dazzling orb of day exceeds the stellar 
luminaries, whose glittering smiles are lost until the 
sable robes of night have hid the solar rays, so the 


The Two Kingdoms. 247 

leader of the rebel bands surpassed in power, splendor 
and beauty all that mighty host that thronged the eter¬ 
nal halls, and encircled the King of the universe. By 
his fall, Satan has not lost his natural endowments, 
which exalted him above the noblest of the celestial 
choirs, and made him the highest creature in exist¬ 
ence. 

Man can create from pre-existing matter. Hu¬ 
man skill has beautified the world with the produc¬ 
tions of art. It has left its impress upon the sands of 
the Nile in the erection of temples, palaces and pyra¬ 
mids that have defied the storms of ages. It is dis¬ 
played in the creation of great cities, the construction 
of railroads and canals, and in those steel-clad ships 
that brave the frowns of heaven and encounter the 
wrath of the deep. Human industry can execute mar¬ 
velous feats, but it requires labor, time and patience. 

Diabolical potency exceeds all the forces of na¬ 
ture. Archimedes enunciated a simple truth, when he 
stated that he could move the earth, if he had a lever 
of sufficient length, with a fulcrum and a place to 
stand. What the Greek mathematician could accom¬ 
plish by the application of a natural law, Satan can 
effect by his inherent virtue. 

Lucifer, if not trammeled in his operation by di¬ 
vine restraint, could extinguish the sheen of the sun, 
and hurl the stars through the wide domain of space. 
Therefore many feats apparently miraculous to the 
human mind may be prodigies executed by virtue of 
demoniacal agency. 

St. John, in that grand vision, when the pearly 
gates of heaven were opened to him, and he beheld 
the golden palace and the crystal throne encircled with 
the four-and-twenty ancients, and an immense multi¬ 
tude of every nation and people and tribe and tongue 


248 


The Two Kingdoms. 


standing in awe before the majesty of the Eternal 
King; when the holy Evangelist was feasting upon in¬ 
finite glories, and his soul was enraptured with divine 
bliss, he “saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having 
seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten 
diadems, and upon his heads names of blasphemy. 
And the beast which I saw was like to a leopard; and 
his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as 
the mouth of a lion, and the dragon gave him his own 
strength and power. ” (Apocalypse, 13-1.) 

The beast, the personification of muscular 
strength, is the representative of secular power. The 
seven heads are seven religions, and the ten horns are 
ten kingdoms. The explanation given by the angel in 
the seventeenth chapter does not collide, but rather 
harmonizes with this interpretation. The celestial 
spirit informs the Evangelist that the seven heads are 
seven kingdoms, five of which have already fallen, one 
is, and the other is not yet come; and the beast is the 
eighth, but is of the seventh; and the ten horns are 
ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but 
shall receive power as kings one hour after the beast. 
Interpreters usually designate the Egyptian, Assyrian, 
Chaldean, Persian and Grecian monarchies, as the five 
fallen kingdoms; the Empire of Rome as the one ex¬ 
tant when the Revelations were made; and the king¬ 
dom of Anti-Christ as the one to come. Therefore, 
they contend that the seven heads are seven secular 
governments, and not seven forms of worship, an¬ 
tagonistic to the divinely established creed. 

The Bible does not specify the nature of these 
kingdoms, whether they be temporal or spiritual, and 
it is not contrary to Scriptural exegesis to maintain 
that the seven heads are seven religious governments, 
bodies or organizations, and are therefore called king- 


The Two Kingdoms. 


2 49 

doms, in the same sense that Christ calls his Church a 
kingdom. The five decayed monarchies are men¬ 
tioned by the angelic expositor to signify five distinct 
forms of worship, (akin to the cults of those ancient 
nations) that shall oppose the reign of Christ in the 
last days of the world’s history. 

Why does the inspired agent proclaim that the 
beast is the eighth, but is of the seventh, unless he 
speaks of a religion that shall arise to destroy the 
Church of Christ, and, from its opposition to the reign 
of truth, shall partake of the nature of those creeds 
that, for thousands of years before the birth of the 
Messiah, dethroned God and apotheosized the darkest 
passions that ever defiled the human heart? Again, 
why does the angel say that the ten kings shall receive 
power as kings one hour after the beast? When the 
seven false cults shall obtain supremacy, the ten kirig- 
doms into which the earth shall be divided, shall en¬ 
roll themselves beneath the standard of the dragon, or 
Satan, and shall wage war against Christ and his 
chosen people. 

As time brings about many changes, I feel diffi¬ 
dent in attempting to designate the seven cults that 
shall oppose the reign of Christ upon earth towards 
the sunset of ages. The next two thousand years 
might astonish the world with the decline and the birth 
of religions. But at the present day we can mention 
seven enemies of Christian thought; and these, uniting 
their forces under the power of the beast and the 
dragon, might be the seven heads seen in the vision of 
St. John. The Buddhists, the Brahmins, the Confu- 
cians, the Mohammedans, are foes of biblical doctrines. 
To these we may add infidels, who repudiate divine 
revelation; atheists, who reject the idea of a Supreme 
Being, and Jews, who denied Christ, and are yet look- 


250 


The Two Kingdoms. 


ing for the Messiah promised by the visions that illum¬ 
inated the faith of Israel. 

The disciples of these religions will see in Anti- 
Christ the realization of their dreams. To the Budd¬ 
hists he will be the most perfect type of humanity, the 
noblest product of their mysterious teachings; to the 
Hindoos he will be the incarnation of Brahma; to the 
Confueians he will be the Great Spirit, that inspired the 
ancient philosopher; to the Mohammedans he will don 
the character of the Prophet or Allah; to the children 
of Abraham he will answer the dream of their seers. 
Infidels will accept him as the Creator, and atheists 
will regard him as Nature personified. 

I might omit the last two opponents of Christian 
sovereignty, and substitute in their places the Sinto- 
ists of Japan, and the fire-worshipers of Persia 

The ten kingdoms, if we are permitted to speak 
with any authority from our knowledge of the world 
at the present time, may be thus enumerated: Europe, 
Asia, Africa, Australia, Canada, the United States, 
Mexico, Central America, and presuming the consoli¬ 
dation of the South American republics into two gov¬ 
ernments, we have a totality of ten kingdoms. Of 
course, this is a simple hypothesis, and the next two 
thousand years may effect many alterations in the 
geographical boundaries of countries, and the histori¬ 
cal importance and national power of governments. 

The beast seen by the Evangelist “was like to a 
leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his 
mouth as the mouth of a lion.” Secular power, which 
shall be represented by seven kingdoms, inimical to the 
teachings of Christianity, is typified by a creature, re¬ 
sembling three distinct animals, and each animal is a 
figure of some characteristic of the Anti-Christian em¬ 
pire. The leopard, symbol of velocity and impetuos- 


The Two Kingdoms. 


251 


ity, represents the violence with which the agents of hell 
shall rush on to their own perdition, by the destruction 
of the vast fabric of morality. The bear is the symbol 
of roughness and severity, with which Anti-Christ will 
execute the mandates of the dragon, in the ruthless 
destruction of temples and shrines. The lion is the 
type of cruelty, and fitly represents the violence of 
Satan in persecuting the disciples of the Nazarene. 

The attributes of Anti-Christ were revealed in a 
vision to Daniel under the appearance of four distinct 
beasts: “I saw in my vision, and behold, the four 
winds of heaven strove upon the great sea, and four 
beasts, different one from another, came up out of the 
sea. The first was like a lioness. And behold, an¬ 
other beast, like a bear, stood up on one side, and there 
were three rows in the mouth thereof, and in the teeth 
thereof. After this I beheld, and lo, another like a 
leopard, and it had upon it four wings, and the beast 
had four heads. After this I beheld in the vision of 
the night, and, lo, a fourth beast, terrible and wonder¬ 
ful and exceeding strong; it had great iron teeth, eat¬ 
ing and breaking in pieces; it was unlike to the other 
beasts and had ten horns.” (Dan. 7.) 

The beast described in the Apocalypse has all the 
characteristics of the four beasts manifested in the 
vision to Daniel. St. John saw a beast with seven 
heads and ten horns; and the great prophet of Israel 
beheld four beasts, one of which having four heads, 
making a total of seven heads, and one having ten 
horns. The facts revealed in these two visions are 
identical, but expressed in different language, and 
illustrated with a slight difference in the imagery. 

“I considered the horns, and behold another little 
horn sprung out of the midst of them, and three of the 
first horns were plucked up at the presence thereof; 


252 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


and behold eyes like the eyes of a man were in this 
horn; and a mouth speaking great things.” (Dan. 
7th.) 

The head is the seat of the intellect, and is, there¬ 
fore, the ruling power in animals as well as in man. 
The head wills, directs, commands, and the members 
of the body obey. In the last days the seven great 
religions will direct the operations of governments 
against Christianity as an animal employs its horns in 
defensive and offensive combat. Religion will be the 
active principle, and secular power the passive agency, 
executing the nefarious edicts of Satan in the persecu¬ 
tion of Christian truth, and in the exaltation of false 
worship, and in the deification of false teachers. The 
little horn mentioned by the prophet is Judaism, which 
shall be nationalized in the closing century of the 
world’s existence in the repatriation of the Hebrew 
race to the land of their ancestors, and the restoration 
of the synagogue on the ancient site of Solomon’s 
temple. 

Juda shall be restored to the land of promise, and 
Anti-Christ, being personified in a son of Israel, shall 
aggrandize the national importance of that people, who 
will be recognized by all tongues as the chosen race. 
Neighboring tribes will seek the friendship of Anti- 
Christ, by swearing allegiance to his government, and 
his empire will grow until it shall embrace all Asia, 
and then he will assert his supremacy over the Conti¬ 
nent of Europe and Australia; and thus shall be ful¬ 
filled the prophecy of Daniel. 

“And he shall confirm the covenant with many 
in one week, and in half tire week the victim and the 
sacrifice shall fail, and there shall be in the temple the 
abomination of desolation, and the desolation shall 
continue even to the consummation and the end.” 
(Dan. 9-27.) 


The Two Kingdoms. 253 

This prophecy is confirmed by Jesus, who says 
that, “When therefore you shall see the abomination 
of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the pro¬ 
phet, sitting in the holy place, he that readeth let him 
understand.” Although these two prophecies were 
accomplished forty years after the resurrection of 
Christ, yet their full significance will not be realized 
till the end of the world, when the sacred edifice of the 
chosen race shall be rebuilt, and Anti-Christ will as¬ 
sume his throne in the Holy of Holies. 

St. Irenaeus writes that the arch-enemy of our 
souls will come, not as a just king, but being impious, 
unjust, lawless, he will come as a rebel, unrighteous, 
a murderer, and a thief, “summoning up the rebellions 
of the devil in himself, and while he setteth aside idols, 
to persuade men that he is himself God, he will exalt 
himself, the one Idol, containing in himself the various 
errors of other idols, that those, who, by many abom¬ 
inations, adore the Devil, may by this one Idol become 
slaves to him. And besides these things, he hath man¬ 
ifested that also, which in many ways hath been 
proved by us, that the temple in Jerusalem was made 
by the direction of the true God. For the Apostle 
himself in his own person hath called it distinctly the 
‘Temple of God.’ In which temple the adversary will 
sit trying to exhibit himself as Christ.” (Irenaeus’ 
Works, p. 507, etc.) 

The Jews having rejected the Son of God, and 
nailed him to the Cross, their temple was destroyed 
and they were expatriated, and for the last nineteen 
hundred years, they have been wandering over the 
earth, bearing visibly on their foreheads the curse of 
heaven’s wrath. The characteristics of the Hebrew 
race are known to every people, and the impress of 
deicidfc is written on the visage of every son of Abra¬ 
ham. 


2 54 


The Two Kingdoms. 


They long for the age when the Messiah shall ar¬ 
rive, and recall them to the valley of the Jordan, the 
hills of Judea and the mountains of Israel, where they 
shall roam again amidst the vineyards of Engaddi, 
over the plains of Jericho, visit the city that fell into a 
heap of ruins at the magic sound of a trumpet, linger 
among the olive groves, and pluck the wild thyme 
from the banks that guard their streams, listen to the 
doleful music of the Dead Sea, kiss the tombs of their 
patriarchs, behold Sharon rejoicing in the golden 
wealth of grain, and watch the herds grazing on the 
verdant slopes. They long to gain possession of their 
ancestral kingdom, to rebuild its fallen cities, to replace 
the crumbling stones, to erect the temple of Solomon 
on the sacred mount where it arose in majestic splen¬ 
dor nearly three thousand years ago. They long to 
bring the treasures of the world, which they have ac¬ 
cumulated through the silent centuries, to the land of 
their sires, and make Jerusalem what it was in the days 
of the Royal Prophet, when it was the most hallowed 
spot on the globe. 

Therefore, ever looking for the Expectation of the 
nations, they fondly hope, in their exile, that a great 
king will arise for their deliverance; that the dream of 
their prophets will yet be fulfilled in the birth of a 
Redeemer, who will gather them from the four winds 
of heaven, and reinstate them in the Holy Land and 
make them the glory of nations. They will gladly ac¬ 
cept Anti-Christ for the Messiah of Israel.* 

As the Son of Perdition, foretold by the Apostle 
of the Nations, will gain universal supremacy, as his 
empire is symbolized by the beast with seven religions 
and ten kingdoms, it is with certitude that I pronounce 
the opinion that the little horn springing out of the 
midst of the others, will be Judaism nationalized, and. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


255 


by a master stroke of policy, smiting down the other 
kingdoms in the assumption of governmental author¬ 
ity over the three contiguous countries of Europe, 
Asia and Africa. The nations in the Western Hemi¬ 
sphere will retain their autonomy, owing to the great 
distance lying between them and the dominant power 
of the Orient; but, nevertheless, they shall sympathize 
with the Anti-Christian movement of the conqueror, 
and lend their influence to the consolidation of his 
empire by the bonds of an alliance, which shall make 
Israel the mistress of the globe. 

Since Palestine is to be the brightest star in the 
firmament of nations, and the councils of Jerusalem are 
to shape the destiny of governments, it follows, as a 
logical conclusion, that Asia, and especially the Le¬ 
vant, will be the center of intellectual and material 
progress. It may sound absurd to voice this opinion, 
as there is no indication at the present day of the com¬ 
ing preponderance of the East. 

Who would have thought, four thousand years 
ago, that the eagle of progress would have perched 
upon the rocks of the Mediterranean and that the 
Phoenician Confederation would have become the sun 
of ancient civilization, shedding the rays of light upon 
every country from the land of frozen streams to the 
billows of the South Sea; bringing the blessings of 
commerce to Scotia and Scandinavia, exchanging the 
products of the Scilly Islands for the silks of China, 
and the furs of India for the amber of the Baltic, the 
fabrics of Cashmere for the gold of Arabia? 

The generations that peopled the fertile plains of 
Syria and dwelt in regal magnificence upon the shores 
of the Tigris and on the borders of the' Persian Gulf 
thirty centuries ago, never dreamed that the star of 
genius would arise, like a goddess, from the wild 


The Two Kingdoms. 


256 

Aegean flood that swept the rocks of Greece and cov¬ 
ered every land and every wave with the glory of its 
sheen. They never dreamed that the wisdom of 
statesmen and the eloquence of orators would conse¬ 
crate the Hill of Mars with immortal wreaths. They 
never dreamed that Athens would become the school 
of poets and philosophers; and that the bard of every 
clime and the muse of every age, would make a pil¬ 
grimage to the shores of Hellas to visit the sacred 
shrines where the loftiest inspirations were imbibed, 
and where every stone is consecrated by hallowed 
memories, and every clod contains the dust of faded 
glory; where the sigh of every wind and the wail of 
every grove, and the song of every wood, and the 
whisper of every tree, sound like the voice of sweetest 
lyres, the strains of silent harps. 

If we study the history of civilization and the 
progress of our race, we observe that it has followed 
the path of the sun. Starting from the banks of the 
Euphrates, it lingered for many centuries around the 
cradle of humanity. 

The Accadians, descending from the mountain 
dells of Elam, established their capital at Ur, where 
the magnificent ruins of the temple, dedicated to the 
worship of the Sun-God, still attest the wonders of 
their architectural achievements. The empire of 
Babylonia arose majestically in the fertile valley laved 
by the streams of Paradise, and the seat of power was 
adorned with all the wealth and genius of the age. ' 
The city founded by Semiramis, who employed two 
millions of laborers in its construction, was protected 
by a wall two hundred cubits high and fifty cubits wide, 
and furnished with a hundred brazen gates. The city 
was embellished with hanging gardens, even now re¬ 
garded as one of the wonders of the world. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


2 57 


Let us leave those ruins of ancient temples and 
palaces, this emporium of the East, where the products 
of distant lands were bought and sold, this Mecca 
where modern genius wanders in quest of relics that 
attest the grandeur and magnitude of ancient civiliza¬ 
tion, where buried treasures are sought by archaeolo¬ 
gists from the most populous and progressive cities on 
the globe, and pay a visit to the capital of Assyria. 
The spot where the famous hunter pitched his tent to 
rest his weary limbs, grew, in the course of centuries, 
to be the pride of the Orient, and the proudest orna¬ 
ment of the Tigris. It was sixty miles in circumfer¬ 
ence, encircled with a massive wall one hundred feet 
high, and so broad that three chariots could pass 
abreast on it, furnished with fifteen hundred towers, 
each two hundred feet in height, and embellished with 
every work of art that mental power and manual skill 
could produce. 

The light of civilization waned in the Orient. The 
star of hope wandered across the heavens till its 
bright smile fell upon the borders of the Red Sea and 
the mountains of Egypt, and cities with temples and 
shrines and schools and libraries, sprung forth to em¬ 
bellish the banks of the Nile. The land of the Phar¬ 
aohs became the sanctuary of science, and the astron¬ 
omers of Memphis and Thebes passed their lives in 
contemplating the mysteries of nature in the light of 
dazzling spheres and the course of flaming orbs. 

The ships of Phoenicia had scarcely borne the 
blessings of culture to Tunis, Algeria and Morocco, 
when the lyre of the Muse echoed among the rocks 
and crags of Boetia, and the world was flooded with 
golden beams of light from the shores of Attica. 

The wolf-suckled twins built their throne on the 
borders of the Tiber, and Rome crowned her seven 


The Two Kingdoms. 


258 

hills with the laurels which genius had won from 
Mount Helicon to the land of Arabia and from the 
Syrian Gates to the Libyan desert. 

For two thousand years, art, science, literature 
and philosophy did not pass the confines of the vast 
Roman Empire. The rest of the world was the land 
of the barbarian, and was only touched by the foot of 
civilized man, when the armed battalions of the Eter¬ 
nal City appeared beneath the imperial eagles, bent on 
subduing the sons of the forest with the mortal stroke 
of the blade, and of consecrating their ^native wilds in 
a flood of gory tears. 

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Ital¬ 
ian republics revived the splendor of Greece in her 
palmiest days, and the glory of Spanish power, start¬ 
ing from the rocks of Gibraltar, sparkled like the sun 
of the morning on the waves of every sea, and shone 
on every land, till Gothic supremacy was recognized 
from the gold coast of Africa to the gates of the New 
World. The destruction of the Invincible Armada in 
the wild tem'pest of the German Ocean sealed the fate 
of this mighty empire, and the glory of the Latin race 
was bequeathed to the nations of the North. 

When Rome, Florence, Venice and Genoa were 
the proudest cities on the globe, cultivating every art 
and science, and conducting the commercial enter¬ 
prises of European nations; when Leon and Castile 
were extending their dominions into the southern and 
western hemispheres; when Spanish marines were car¬ 
rying the emblem of their country to distant climes, 
and bringing the blessings of civilization to tribes be¬ 
neath the blue of other skies, England, Scotland, the 
Netherlands, and Scandinavia were yet clad in swath¬ 
ing bands, passing their years of infancy little thinking 
that the day was near at hand when they were to join 


The Two Kingdoms. 


^59 

the concert of nations, and lead the world in the 
march of progress. 

What has occurred in the past shall be repeated 
in the future. When Caesar planted the Roman 
eagles on the rocks of Britain, he never dreamed that, 
within the space of five centuries, the scepter would 
pass from the hills of the Eternal City to the waves of 
the Bosphorus; he never dreamed that in less than 
two thousand years the savage tribes that roamed over 
the purple-robed vales of Kent, hunting the wild deer 
and the wolf, and lighted their fires on the banks of 
the Thames to prepare their prey for the festive board, 
would emerge from the obscurity of nomadic life to 
the pinnacle of national glory, sweeping every sea, 
unfurling the banner of their empire beneath every 
sky, and, in the vast magnitude of their dominion, 
looking down with contemptuous pity upon those 
countries that once received the sanction of their laws 
from the shores of the Tiber. What marvels the fu¬ 
ture may reveal, no seer can foretell. 

Starting from the land of Ur, civilization has 
moved westward for four thousand years, until it has 
crossed the Rocky Mountains and clad the Pacific 
waves in tints of golden light. The spirit of progress is 
spasmodic in its operations. It is confined by certain 
boundaries for centuries, when some great event gives 
it a new impetus, and, collecting the dormant energies 
of the race, it traverses over oceans and continents, 
and builds new shrines in the forest glades of new 
worlds. The Italian visionary dreamed that the gates 
of Cathay were wrapped in the sable clouds that brood¬ 
ed over the billows of the western main; and going 
forth from the port of Palos, he discovered that a vast 
continent lay between Europe and the land of his 
visions. The existence of the New World became 


26 o 


The Two Kingdoms. 


known to the Old, and the children of misfortune and 
the sons of toil left their desolate homes in the father- 
land to ameliorate their condition amidst the savage 
wilds of the western hemisphere, and thus America 
was populated with a foreign element, that formed 
these republics and introduced a civilization which 
has no peer in the centuries of the past. 

Greece had greater orators, philosophers, poets, 
sculptors and painters; Egypt had architects whose 
massive designs, constructed with mathematical skill, 
have never been equaled in modern times; the temples 
of Syria were master-strokes of genius; but none of 
these constitute the criterion of civilization. Mental 
and moral culture must be blended in the formation of 
human character, in the cultivation of the powers of 
the soul. The ancients have left grand monuments 
of intellectual advancement, but their moral codes 
were generally as degrading as their superstitious wor¬ 
ship, and, therefore, I feel confident that the student of 
history will sanction the declaration that the civiliza¬ 
tion of our age is the concentration of all the triumphs 
of all the centuries. 

Shall the march of progress terminate on the Pa¬ 
cific Slope? Shall it cross the main and invade the 
realms of the Mikado and the Celestial Empire, and 
roll onward, gathering strength with the passage of 
centuries, until it culminates in focalizing the civil¬ 
ization of all climes and all ages in the cradle of hu¬ 
manity? The triumph of physical, mental and moral 
advancement will not be completed till it has made 
the circuit of the globe, and has returned to the land of 
its nativity. 

Heretofore the multiplication of the human race 
has been impeded by wars, famines, pestilences and 
diseases of various characters. The reign of the Mil- 


The Two Kingdoms. 


261 


lennium shall abolish war from the earth. The Garden 
of Kden shall bloom again in that age of grace, and 
all the sons of men shall live on its luscious fruits; and 
famine shall no longer fill the land with the victims of 
hunger. Luxuries being banished from every board 
and every home in the simplicity of a spiritual reign, 
and in the materialization of socialism, disease will be 
entirely eliminated. Besides, the science of medicine, 
which has made such rapid progress during the last 
decade, will be brought to perfection with the wonder¬ 
ful developments of the coming centuries, and it will 
be thoroughly equipped to meet, and combat, and con¬ 
quer, and exterminate the worst form of pestilence. 
These weapons of defense being utilized against the 
ordinary foes of human life, the multiplication of man¬ 
kind will be vastly accelerated, and in a few centuries 
the more densely populated countries will be con¬ 
strained to seek new fields in the sparsely settled 
regions of the Orient. This impulse given to emigra¬ 
tion will result in the development of the latent re¬ 
sources hidden in the unexplored territory of the 
Asiatic continent. 

Western Asia was the birthplace of humanity. It 
was there our first parents roved along the banks of 
crystal streams, and reposed beneath the foliage of um¬ 
brageous groves, basking in the smile of heaven, 
standing in the presence of God, listening to his pa¬ 
ternal voice, and conversing with the angels who came 
clad in sunbeams of glory to consort with them, and 
elevate their aspirations with stories of celestial joys. 
It was there, that the blight of sin first touched the 
human heart, and the breath of Satan tarnished the 
radiant soul of pristine man. It was there, that the 
first families of our race lived and toiled and suffered 
and died. It was there, that the original patriarchs 


262 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


appeased the wrath of God with the odor of sacrifice, 
and taught their children to love and obey their Cre¬ 
ator. It was there, that all supernatural visitations 
were made; the manifestations of divine anger in the 
flaming breath that consumed the cities of Sodom and 
Gomorrah; the apparition of angels to the Father of 
the chosen race ; the apparition of angels to the sire of 
the twelve tribes of Israel; the apparition of angels to 
Lot; the apparition of an angel to Josue, to Agar, to 
Balaam, to Gedeon, to Elias the prophet, to Tobias. 
It was there, that God appeared to Moses in the form 
of a burning bush. It was there, that the great legis¬ 
lator of Israel changed the bitter stream, and made its 
waters like unto honey; that he transformed a hard 
rock into a silvery fountain. It was there, that God 
directed the footsteps of Israel by the shadows of a 
cloud and the light of a blazing column. It was there, 
that manna fell from the skies to satiate the hunger of 
the wandering tribes. It was there, that the Ten 
Commandments were promulgated amidst peals of 
thunder and flashes of lightning. It was there, that 
the heroic leader, who had conducted the enthralled 
multitude from the sands of the Nile to the valley of- 
the Jordan, died and was buried. It was there, that a 
great stream was divided by the voice of a man and a 
mighty city fell with the echo of a trumpet. It was 
there, that martial angels led the hosts of Israel against 
the unholy tribes of Canaan, and crowned the children 
of the desert with laurels of victory and covered the 
camp of the heathen with defeat and disaster. It was 
there, a celestial spirit smote the power of Assyria, % 
filling her tents with one hundred and eighty-five thou¬ 
sand victims, and chastised the presumption of an in¬ 
spired king with the loss of a vast army. It was there, 
that the holy men of Israel spoke truths that were re- 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


263 


vealed in illuminations from heaven, and foretold 
events that would transpire after hundreds of years. 
It was there, that Christ was born, lived until he grew 
into manhood, and delivered his doctrines and re¬ 
deemed the world with effusions of his blood. It is 
there, that the aggregate generations of the world will 
be judged on the last day, for the prophet foretold of 
Christ that he “will gather all nations and bring them 
down into the valley of Josaphat. Let them rise and 
let the nations come up into the valley of Josaphat, for 
there I will sit to judge all nations round about.” 
(Joel, 3.) 

Civilization shall be highest in that part of the 
earth where the eventful history of religion will come 
to a close, and, thus, it is the city of Jerusalem where 
Anti-Christ will establish his temple and reign over the 
nations of the earth. 

The Evangelist says that when tbe two witnesses 
have finished their mission “the beast that ascendeth 
out of the abyss shall kill them, and their bodies shall 
lie on the streets of the great city, which is called spir¬ 
itually Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord also was 
crucified.” (n-8.) Now the great city, great because 
it shall be the mistress of the globe, is Jerusalem, for 
that is the place where Christ was nailed to the cross. 
It is represented by Sodom and Egypt on account of 
the abominations and carnal lusts that shall reign in it 
during the age of its supremacy. 

This great city is identical with the Babylon de¬ 
scribed in the seventeenth and eighteenth chapters. 
There the Evangelist stated that he “saw a woman sit¬ 
ting upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blas¬ 
phemy, having seven heads and ten horns.” (17th 
chap.) Now we have seen in the eleventh chapter that 
the beast which ascendeth up out of the abyss shall 


264 The Two Kingdoms. 

kill the two witnesses in Jerusalem, and hence this city 
must be the great Babylon whose wealth and glory and 
luxury and abominations are the wonder of the world. 
The angel shall exclaim: ‘'Babylon the great is fallen, 
is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and 
the hold of every unclean spirit. Because all nations 
have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornications, 
and the kings of the earth have committed fornications 
with her, and the merchants of the earth have been 
made rich by the power of her delicacies. Alas! Alas I 
Alas! that great city, which was clothed with fine linen 
and purple, and was gilt with gold and precious stones 
and pearls. What city is like to this great city!” 
(Apoc. 18.) Every expression indicative of vast wealth 
and preponderance is applied to this great city, which, 
I have proved, is no other than the ancient Zion re¬ 
built, adorned and magnified. 

There is no incongruity in the supposition that 
Asia will become the garden of the globe and Jerusa¬ 
lem the metropolis of the world. The possibilities of 
that vast continent exceed human imagination. It has 
the loftiest mountains, the grandest rivers, the most 
extensive tablelands, and the richest valleys in the 
world. Factories, operated by the torrents that sweep 
down from the rocks of the Himalayas, the Atlas, the 
Hindu Kush, Ural and other gigantic elevations, whose 
peaks are eternally clad in robes of white, would sup¬ 
ply all nations with the wealth of their product. Odor¬ 
iferous drugs are found in abundance. Its flora and 
fauna are beyond classification. Balsam, resins, dates, 
bananas, tea, rice, maize, wheat, oats, barley, rye, 
beans, peas, sugar-cane, cotton, pepper, tobacco, hemp, 
flax, cinnamon, orange and lemon trees, the olive, 
peach and nectarine, the apricot, the fig, mulberry and 
vine, are among the many products of those neglected 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


265 


regions. Besides its flowers, fruits and cereals, Asia 
has unbounded wealth hidden in her vast mountains 
and extensive plateaus. 

But I have spoken of Asia as a whole without en¬ 
tering into a dissertation of the natural resources of its 
separate parts. Leaving the thousands of square miles 
and millions of acres stretching between the Arctic and 
Indian Oceans and from Persia to the Island of For¬ 
mosa, let us survey the western regions washed by the 
Mediterranean surge. In the land of the Saracen, de¬ 
scribing the coast of Palestine, Bayard Taylor writes: 
“We rose on a dark and cloudy morning, and con¬ 
tinued our way between fields of barley, completely 
stained with the bloody hue of the-poppy, and meadows 
turned into golden mosaic by a brilliant yellow daisy.” 
The author states that the plain of Esdraelon is a “pic¬ 
ture of summer luxuriance and bloom. The waves of 
wheat and barley rolled away from our path to the 
distant olive orchards; a garden of orange, lemon, fig 
and pomegranate trees in blossom, was a spring of 
sweet odors which overflowed the whole land.” 

After giving a detailed account of this favored 
spot, the author states that if Palestine were restored 
to Christian hands, it would again flow with milk and 
honey. 

Baldwin says that the soil of Arabia is prolific in 
every variety of fruit and grain, and that her moun¬ 
tains are pregnant with golden treasures and priceless 
gems. 

Volney contemplates the desolation of Syria, and 
mourns over her faded glory! “And the history of 
former times revived in my mind. I remembered 
those ancient ages, when many illustrious nations in¬ 
habited these countries; I figured to myself the Assy¬ 
rian on the banks of the Tigris, the Chaldean on the 


266 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


banks of the Euphrates, the Persian reigning from the 
Indus to the Mediterranean. I enumerated the king¬ 
doms of Damascus and Idumea, of Jerusalem and 
Samaria, the warlike states of the Philistines, and the 
commercial republics of Phoenecia. Ah! whither 
have flown those ages of life and abundance ? Whither 
vanished those brilliant creations of human industry?” 

The angel of progress will again touch those soli¬ 
tudes with the magic wand, and the silent stones that 
have been scattered in a mass of ruins for ages, will 
leap forth into new creations, and thriving hamlets and 
villages, populous towns and cities, adorned with regal 
halls and stately palaces and majestic temples, will fill 
the desert wastes with life, joy, wealth and activity. 

The character of Anti-Christ will be the opposite 
in many respects, to that of the Redeemer. Christ was 
the essence of simplicity; his adversary will be the per¬ 
sonification of pride. Christ was born in obscurity 
and lived in poverty; his adversary shall spring from 
a royal family, and he will reign amidst all the splendor 
of a golden age. Christ was born of a virgin; his ad¬ 
versary will be the offspring of a scarlet woman. 
Christ was infinite sanctity ; his adversary will be the 
son of perdition, as described by St. Paul. Christ was 
crucified on Mount Calvary; his adversary will reign 
in the temple rebuilt on the summit of Mount Moriah. 
The public career of Christ continued about three and 
one-half years; his adversary will rule the world and 
persecute the Church for forty-two months. This is 
plainly specified in the holy Bible. 

The Prophet Daniel says that “The fourth beast 
(Anti-Christ) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, 
which shall be greater than all the kingdoms, and shall 
devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down and 
break it into pieces. And he shall speak words against 


The Two Kingdoms. 


267 


the High One, and shall crush the saints of the Most 
High; and he shall think himself able to change times 
and laws, and they shall be delivered into his hands 
until a time and times and half a time.” (Dan. 7th.) 
A time, in biblical language, means a year, and times, 
used in the dual number, as it is here, signifies two 
years, and half a time is a period of six months, or half 
a year. The same idea, in different terms, is conveyed 
in the ninth chapter, where the Prophet says: “Know 
therefore and take notice, that from the going forth of 
the word to build up Jerusalem again, unto Christ the 
prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. 
And after sixty-two weeks Christ shall be slain, and a 
people with a leader, that shall come, shall destroy the 
city and the sanctuary, and the end thereof shall be 
waste, and after the end of the war, the appointed deso¬ 
lation.” (Dan. 9-25.) By a week, in the language of 
the prophet, is denoted as many years as there are days 
in the week, and therefore a period of seven years. 
Now he informs Israel that a period of sixty-nine 
weeks, or four hundred and eighty-three years, would 
elapse between the rebuilding of the temple and the 
coming of Christ. 

Then, after speaking of the desecration of the syn- 
agogue by the Roman soldiers, he immediately refers 
to the reign of Anti-Christ, and the abomination of 
desolation which shall be enthroned in the Holies of 
the Holies. “And he shall confirm the covenant with 
many nn one week.” Seven years previously to the 
public exaltation of the son of perdition in the sacred 
temple, he shall proselytize among the children of 
Hebrew blood to prepare the way for his assumption 
of divine prerogatives, and his usurpation of spiritual 
and temporal dominion over the nations of the earth. 
“And in the half of the week, the victim and the sacri- 


268 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


fice shall fail; and there shall be in the temple the 
abomination of desolation; and the desolation shall 
continue even to the consummation and the end.” 
(Ibid.) Again we read in the twelfth chapter that 
“from the time when the continual sacrifice shall be 
taken away and the abomination unto desolation shall 
be set up, there shall be a thousand, two hundred and 
ninety days.” (Dan. 12-11.) 

St. John expresses the same fact in other words: 
“And there was given to him a mouth speaking great 
things, and blasphemies; and power was given him 
to do two and forty months.” (Apoc. 13-5.) And this 
is confirmed in the twelfth chapter: “And a great 
sign appeared in heaven; a woman clothed with the 
sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a 
crown of twelve stars.” 

The Church appears clad in the glory of Christ, 
and she represents the unchangeable and everlasting 
kingdom of God, whose children shall reign with their 
Master forever on the eternal hills, and quaff the never- 
ending joys that shall spring from the fountain of bliss. 
The Church is the empire of the just, and that empire 
is imperishable and immortal, for the souls of the pre¬ 
destined shall join the seraphic legions in heaven, and 
their lives will not be measured by centuries and ages, 
but they will be confirmed in the possession of im¬ 
mortal youth. This kingdom tramples on the moon, 
the symbol of mutability, the image of time, the figure 
of decay and death. 

The moon was worshiped in ancient times as the 
queen of heaven, and its appearance in the vision of the 
Evangelist, signifies the exaltation of Christ over the 
divinities of pagan superstition. The twelve stars that 
encircle the brow of the woman are the twelve apostles, 
who adorned the Church with their virtue, glorified her 


The Two Kingdoms. 269 

with their preaching, and confirmed their belief in her 
doctrine with the sacrifice of their lives. 

The Evangelist in the same chapter relates that 
the woman travaileth in pain, and a great red dragon, 
having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads 
seven diadems, stood before the woman ready to de¬ 
vour her child. And she brought forth a man-child 
who was Christ. “And the woman fled in the desert, 
where she had a place prepared by God that there 
they should feed her 1,260 days,” a period of three 
years and six months. 

The same period is designated in the fourteenth 
verse, in the language employed by the Prophet Dan¬ 
iel. The dragon “persecuted the woman, who brought 
forth the man-child. And there was given to the wo¬ 
man two wings of a great eagle that she might fly into 
the desert unto her place, where she is nourished for a 
time and times, and half a time, from the face of the 
serpent.” 

Daniel says that this period will be twelve hundred 
and ninety days, whereas St. John says that it will be 
twelve hundred and sixty days. “The discrepancy,” 
says a Scriptural scholar, “is explained by the different 
modes of reckoning time among the various nations. 
The Jews counted their year by the motion of the 
moon and to make it agree with the solar year, added 
at the end of two years an intercalary month. It is 
very plain that the prophet, counting from the date of 
his vision, might have met with one or more interca¬ 
lations according as it happened to fall this or that side 
of the time for such an insertion.” 

After designating the duration of the Anti-Chris¬ 
tian reign as a period of twelve hundred and ninety 
days, Daniel says: “Blessed is he that waiteth and 
cometh into a thousand, three hundred and thirty-five 


270 


The Two Kingdoms. 


days.” (Dan. 12-12.) It would seem from this that 
the world is to continue about forty-five days after 
the destruction of the beast and the triumph of Chris¬ 
tianity over its enemies. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


271 


CHAPTER X. 

the intellectual and mechanical powers of the 

ANTI-CHRISTIAN EMPIRE SYMBOLIZED BY THE TWO 
HORNS. LOCUSTS. HENOCH AND ELIAS SHALL RE¬ 
TURN TO EARTH AND CONVERT MANY PEOPLE BY 
THEIR PREACHING. THE NUMBER OF ANTI-CHRIST’S 
NAME WILL BE SIX HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SIX. FLY¬ 
ING SHIP* GOG AND MAGOG. VIALS OF WRATH. 
EARTI-I SHALL BE DESTROYED BY DESTRUCTION OF 
EQUILIBRIUM OF NATURAL LAWS. THE NEW HEAVEN 
AND THE NEW EARTH. 

T OWARD the end of the Millennium, when the 
age of iniquity shall have infected the masses, 
the reign of Christ perishing in the hearts of 
his children, the curse of heaven shall fall upon the 
earth, and the glory of Eden shall fade as in the days 
of man’s first transgression. The fertile valleys shall 
no more bloom with golden fruit, and every hill shall 
lose its verdure, and all the wealth of nature shall per¬ 
ish, and floral gardens will be transformed into fields 
of thorns and thistles. The world being densely popu¬ 
lated, the prophecy of our Savior will be fulfilled in 
the reign of famine, and this shall be followed by pesti¬ 
lence. The evil passions of men will renew war, and 
earth will again become a bloody field of battle. 

Anti-Christ, the conqueror of the globe, will have 
a mighty host at his command. “And the number of 
the army of horsemen was twenty thousand times ten 


272 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


thousand.” (Apoc. 9-16.). This would make an army 
of two hundred millions. This plainly proves that 
Asia will be the seat of that vast empire. Two hun¬ 
dred millions of warriors would call for more than one 
thousand millions of people. To-day the continent of 
Asia contains eight hundred and forty millions of peo¬ 
ple, and has an area equal to North and South America 
combined. 

“And I saw another beast coming up out of the 
earth, and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke 
as a dragon.” (Apoc. 13-11.) These two horns sig¬ 
nify a two-fold power, mental and manual skill, or 
science directing the works of mechanical art in secu¬ 
lar aggrandizement. These powers will be utilized by 
Anti-Christ and his auxiliaries in the glorification of 
atheism, practically speaking, and the extermination 
of the revealed religion and the belief in the existence 
of a Supreme Being. 

Scientists at the present day seem to have but one 
object in view, the falsification of the Bible. Infidelity 
proudly boasts that religion has been an insurmount¬ 
able barrier to intellectual and physical development. 
Abandon the puerilities of the Bible, they say, study 
the laws of Nature, regardless of Scriptural facts, or 
the dictates of religion, and the human race will stead¬ 
ily advance toward the distant horizon, where the sun 
of science illumines every truth, and every mystery of 
the universe is exposed to the calcium light of day. 

Science is likened unto a lamb, because it dons the 
garb of gentility; it is clad in the raiment of simplicity, 
and pretends to be the benefactor of humanity, the 
panacea for every ill that afflicts the race of Adam. It 
delves into the silent recesses of nature, and appro¬ 
priates the secret treasures of the universe. It com¬ 
mands the lightning’s flash, and sends it on missions 


The Two Kingdoms. 


273 


of love and mercy over oceans and continents. It trans- 
pares the opacity of the human body, and locates with 
precision the decayed flesh and the fractured bone. It 
vivifies and perpetuates the human voice, so that ears 
yet unborn can listen to the music that once thrilled 
the multitude with ecstacies of delight. It builds rail¬ 
roads, canals, bridges; establishes lines for rapid trans¬ 
portation over land and wave; brings nations together 
in the bonds of social and commercial unity; connects 
the antipodes and annihilates space. 

In these innumerable and valuable benefactions, 
science assumes the character of a lamb, but in its 
spiritual virulence it resembles the savage nature of a 
dragon. The force of mind and matter, the works of 
the intellect, and the works of the hand, shall constitute 
the excellence of the Anti-Christian empire, and shall 
form the image of the beast. 

“And he seduced them that dwelt on the earth for 
the signs which were given have to do in the sight of 
the beast. And it was given him to give life to the 
image of the beast, and that the image of the beast 
should speak, and should cause that whosoever should 
not adore the image of the beast should be slain. And 
he shall make all, both little and great, rich and poor, 
freeman and bondman, to have a character in their 
right hand or on their forehead.” (Apoc. 13-14.) 

Intellectual and mechanical power will make such 
marvelous advancements, and be brought to such per¬ 
fection, that men will forget that there is a God, and in 
the vast achievements of art and science, will adore 
Anti-Christ as the personification of nature’s noblest 
handiwork. 

“And he did great signs, so that he made, also, fire 
to come down from heaven unto the earth in the sight 
of men.” The philosophers of that age, the emis- 


2 74 , 


The Two Kingdoms. 


saries of Satan, the auxiliaries of the beast, shall swarm 
the land like an army of locusts. “And the shapes of 
the locusts were like unto horses prepared for battle; 
and on their heads were, as it were, crowns of gold, 
and their faces were as the faces of men. And they 
had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as 
lions.” (Apoc. 9-7.) 

As the battle steed is impatient when he hears the 
bugle sound, and rushes on with impetuosity to the 
scene of carnage, trampling the dead and dying with 
his iron-clad hoofs, so these wiseacres that shall adorn 
the throne of Anti-Christ, and subvert, with the weapon 
of erudition the structure of revealed religion, shall go 
forth to destruction, little dreaming that the music of 
the cannon is the knell of death, that the smoky col¬ 
umn is the funeral pall. Soft and effeminate, gentle 
and refined, they will resemble the fair sex; but yet 
their doctrine shall destroy the spiritual and moral life 
of the soul, and hence they are symbolized by the 
cruelty of lions that devour their prey with their teeth. 

It is stated in the Bible that the unrighteous shall 
be marked with a sign, either on the forehead or on 
the right hand; that is, they will advance the cause of 
Anti-Christ with the power of their intellect or with 
the force of manual labor. But the just shall be des¬ 
ignated with the sign of predestination. The Evangel¬ 
ist writes that the servants of God were signed on their 
foreheads, and that the locusts should hurt only the 
men who have not the sign. (Apoc. 7-3, 9-4.) 

Ezechiel, in the ninth chapter of his prophecy, de¬ 
scribing the day of wrath, says that he heard God, in 
a vision, speaking to the angel of vengeance, and en¬ 
joining the spirit to “Go through the midst of the city, 
through the midst of Jerusalem, and mark Thau upon 
the foreheads of men that sigh and mourn for all the 


The Two Kingdoms. 


275 


abominations that are committed in the midst thereof; 
and to the others, he said, in my hearing: Go ye, after 
him, through the city, and strike; let not your eye 
spare, nor be ye moved with pity. Utterly destroy old 
and young, maidens, children and women; but on 
whomsoever ye shall see Thau, kill him not.” 

Thau is the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and 
St. Jerome says that the sign placed upon the fore¬ 
heads of the righteous was a mark resembling this let¬ 
ter, which was in the form of a cross. The cross being 
the symbol of salvation, was thus early employed as a 
sign of the predestined. 

St. Paul says: “But God forbid that I should 
glory but in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by 
whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.” 
(Galat. 6-14.) During the last persecution the disci¬ 
ples of the Galilean shall be recognized by the simpli¬ 
city of their faith, the obedience of their hearts, and 
the holy sacrifice of their lives. While the adherents 
of Satan are engaged in demolishing the influence of 
Christianity, the just shall accept the teachings of the 
inspired volume, and conform their lives to its holy 
inspirations. 

At the dawn of the Anti-Christian reign God will 
send Henoch and Elias to recall the Jews from the path 
of iniquity to the glorious inheritance promised to 
Abraham four thousand years ago. The holy city 
shall be trodden under foot “for two and forty months. 
And I will give unto my two witnesses, and they shall 
prophesy a thousand, two hundred and sixty days in 
sackcloth.” 

The Apostle of the Gentiles says that “by one man, 
sin entered into the world, and by sin, death ; so death 
hath passed unto all men.” The shadows of the tomb 
must fall upon the glory of every human life. How- 


276 ^ The Two Kingdoms. 

ever, Divine Omnipotence who “holds all things in 
the hollow of his hands” has made two exceptions to 
this law. Two men of the ancient world were trans¬ 
lated to paradise before passing through the agonies of 
death and the mystery of the grave. God, wishing to 
convert the heart of all peoples, tribes and . tongues, 
prolonged the life of Henoch and Elias, that he might 
send them before the end of the world as prophets to 
redeem the Gentile and the Jew. “Henoch pleased God 
and was translated to Paradise that he may give re¬ 
pentance to the nations.” (Eccle. 44-16.) Moses 
says that “Henoch walked with God and was seen no 
more, because God took him.” (Gen. 5-24.) The 
mission of this great man will be to proclaim the law of 
Christ to the descendants of pagan sires, who did not 
belong to the Abrahamic race. 

That Elias was translated to heaven is evident 
from the inspired record. “And as they went on walk¬ 
ing and talking, behold a fiery chariot and fiery horses 
parted them both asunder, and Elias went up by a 
whirlwind into heaven.” (Fourth Kings, 2-11.) 
Nearly five hundred years previously to the birth of 
Christ, Malachias foretold that this renowned prophet 
would return again to the earth, to announce to the 
Jews that Jesus is the God of Abraham, Isaac and 
Jacob. “Behold I will send you Elias before the com¬ 
ing of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, and he 
will turn the heart of the fathers to the children and 
the heart of the children to the fathers.” (Mai. 4-5.) 

St. Augustine explains this passage by stating that 
when the prophet appears, he will expound the law 
in a spiritual sense, which the Jews now accept in a 
carnal sense, and that the children, comprehending 
the promises as they were understood by their ances¬ 
tors, in the days of Moses, the heart of the fathers, in 


The Two Kingdoms. 277 

their love for God and the Savior, will be given to the 
children, who will be thus like unto their sires in faith 
and obedience. (De Civit-Dei, Book 20, chap. 29.) 

Moses and Elias appeared at the transfiguration 
of Jesus on Mount Thabor, to confirm by their pres¬ 
ence that he who stood before the Apostles in radiant 
glory was the Messiah of the Ancient Testament. 

That the Jews expected the coming of Elias before 
the end of the world is evinced by the query of the 
Apostles, who asked our Lord, “Why, then, do the 
scribes say that Elias must come first?” and this ex¬ 
pectation of Israel was corroborated by the declara¬ 
tion of Christ, saying, “Elias indeed shall come and re¬ 
store all things.” (Matth. 17-10.) By these words 
Christ conveys the meaning that the mission of the 
prophet shall consist in recalling the sons of Abraham 
to the inheritance made to their fathers, and his pos¬ 
terity, but, on account of the iniquities of Israel, was 
taken from the Jews and given to the Gentiles. 

“The children of Israel shall return and shall seek 
the Lord their God and David their king, and they 
shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the last days.” 
(Osee 3.) “And it shall come to pass in that day 
that the Lord shall set his hand a second time to 
possess the remnant of his people. He shall assemble 
the fugitives of Israel, and shall gather together the 
dispersed of Judea from the four quarters of the 
globe.” (Isa. 11-11.) “I will give you a new heart 
and put a new spirit within you. I will take away 
the stony heart. You shall be my people and I will 
be your God.” (Ezech. 36-26.) 

Forty centuries ago, in a far eastern land, fanned 
by the breath of the sweet zephyrs of the South Sea, 
shielded from the fierce blasts that sweep the sandy 
plains of Arabia, and the withering siroccos of the 


278 


The Two Kingdoms. 


Libyan desert, bathed in the brightest rays of the 
purple dome, and refreshed by the soft dews that 
distill from the serene skies of the Orient, forty cen¬ 
turies ago, in that ideal clime, there was born a man 
who was destined to influence the thought of all ages, 
and to color the history of every nation. 

Wandering by night from the grotto of his 
nativity to the great city of Babylon, then the mistress 
of the world, he beheld the stars that decked the sable 
vault, and finally his eyes rested upon fair Venus. 
The scion of pagan blood, and educated under the 
influence of pagan dreams, he said, “Behold the God 
and Lord of the Universe!” The star passed from 
the horizon and set behind the distant hills, and 
Abraham exclaimed that this evanescent glory could 
not be the Immutable and Eternal Being. Shortly 
afterwards he gazed upon the full orbed moon as it 
came forth wreathed in smiles of softest radiance, and, 
conquering his incredulity, he paid homage to this 
newly risen Divinity of the skies in words of strongest 
admiration. But the moon vanished behind the moun¬ 
tain’s crest, and the Father of Israel said that it, too, 
was like a fleeting shadow, and its splendor was of 
ephemeral duration. When the sun had risen above 
the rocks of the Elburz, and had kissed the pinnacles 
of Babylon with its rosy lips, he stood at the brazen 
gates of that famous city, and saw the multitude bent 
in adoration. Again he apostrophized the luminary 
of the day: “Wondrous orb, thou only art the Creator 
and Ruler of all nations! but thou, too, hastest like the 
rest to thy setting; neither then art thou my Creator, 
my Lord or my God!” From that moment the faith 
of Abraham in the Supreme Being was confirmed, and 
God called him to a new life, and promised that he 
would make his seed as numerous as the stars of 
heaven. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


2 79 

The Hebrew race has played the most con¬ 
spicuous role in the history of religion, and the litera¬ 
ture of the world is filled with its poetry and its tri¬ 
umphs. vStarting from the land of the Chaldeans we 
trace it to Canaan, whither it wandered into Egypt. 
The story of its deliverance is the record of divine 
power exercised in behalf of an enslaved people, who 
were miraculously conducted from the sands of the 
Nile to the shadow of Sinai, and from the rocks of the 
desert to the Land of Promise. 

When the sons of Pharaoh knelt before their silent 
gods, and the tribes of Canaan sacrificed their babes 
upon the altar of Moloch; when the bards of Greece 
hearkened to the voice of their divinities in the sigh 
of the woods and the whisper of the leaves, in the wail 
of the winds and the gurgling of the rills; when Rome 
presented her garlands to the temple of Mercury, and 
offered her vows to the throne of Jupiter, Israel wor¬ 
shiped the Ruler of the Universe, and the Holy of 
Holies was the sanctuary of the Most High. 

For fourteen centuries the light of faith guided 
the sons of Abraham, and the voice of prophecy kept 
alive in the hearts of the Chosen People the hope of 
Redemption. 

The civilized world is indebted to the Jewish 
people for the history of the creation and fall of human¬ 
ity, and the promise of salvation through the blood 
of Bethlehem’s Babe; for it was to the great legislator 
of that race that the Almighty made these revelations. 
The world is indebted to Israel for the life, character 
and laws of Moses; for the Psalms of David; for the 
poetic effusions of Jeremiah, the sublime thoughts of 
Ezechiel, the eloquent pathos of Isaias, the inspirations 
of Joel and the visions of Daniel. The world has 
received forty-five books of the Bible from Hebrew 
authors. 


280 


The Two Kingdoms. 


Ket us remember that Christ was a Jew, and that 
his ancestry goes back through Jewish history to the 
time of David, a period of a thousand years. He was 
born, he lived, labored, taught and died in Judea. 

He sanctified Bethlehem with the cry of his 
infancy; hallowed Nazareth with the innocence of 
childhood and the thoughts of manhood; consecrated 
Jerusalem with the voice of inspired wisdom; glorified 
Thabor with the splendor of his transfiguration; 
immortalized Calvary with the blood of sacrifice, and 
crowned Olivet with the shadow of his passage from 
earth to heaven. 

He loved the Royal City, and when he gazed on 
her a few days before his crucifixion, he exclaimed 
in tears: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest 
the prophets and stonest them that are sent to thee, 
how often would I have gathered thy children 
together, even as a hen doth gather her chickens under 
her wings, and thou wouldst not!” God has promised 
to remember his beloved people in the last days of the 
world’s existence, and Elias will come as a messenger 
from the skies, to remind the Jews that Christ is the 
Messiah of their prophets; that he is the God who 
veiled the land of Egypt with the mantle of death, and 
changed her rivers into bloody streams; that he is the 
God who fed their fathers in the desert with heavenly 
manna, and slaked their thirst with crystal fountains; 
that he is the God who proclaimed the Ten Command¬ 
ments to Moses on Sinai's blazing peaks, and con¬ 
firmed them with the rumble and roll and roar of the 
stormy welkin. Elias will remind the Jews that Christ 
is the God whose spirit inspired the wail of the 
prophets for the sins of Juda, and whosp sorrow was 
revealed in the lamentations of the Seer over the deso¬ 
lation of the temple; that he is the God who chained 


The Two Kingdoms. 


281 


the war-dogs of the North and smote the giants of 
the South, and preserved Israel’s fertile plains from 
the hoof of the battle steed; that he is the God who 
entered the Assyrian camp, and slew the martial hosts 
who had come to strip the Holy City yf all its wealth 
and glory. Elias will proclaim that Jesus is the God 
who led the legions of Josue to the heart of Canaan, 
and drove the hostile tribes beyond the borders of 
Palestine; that he is the God who strengthened the 
arm of the Jewish maiden to strike the tyrant in his 
tent, and to place his bloody head upon the walls of 
Bethulia; that he is the God who will come in a few 
years to judge the living and the dead in the valley 
of Joshaphat. 

The Scriptures inform us that the preaching of 
these two witnesses will be so efficacious that twelve 
thousand shall be signed of every tribe of Israel. 
(Apoc. 7.) As we have already seen, twelve is 
employed in Biblical language to signify a universal 
number. “The number one thousand,” says an author¬ 
ity, explaining the Revelations, “stands for perfection, 
because ten are the commandments, and the ten being 
squared (cubically) or carried to perfection, gives one 
thousand. Three are the Persons of the Blessed 
Trinity, which multiplied by four gives twelve ; and 
in the faith of the Trinity, either implicit or explicit, 
are the elect called from out of the four quarters of the 
earth. Thus the one hundred and forty-four thousand 
is the universality or perfect whole of the saints.” - 
Hence the twelve thousand signed of every tribe of 
Israel signifies the entire number of Jews and Gentiles 
that shall be saved by the preaching of Henoch and 
Elias, and this vast army of neophytes is the realization 
of the vision, when St. John beheld one of the heads 
of the beast “slain to death.” (Apoc. 13-3.) 


282 


The Two Kingdoms. 


The emissaries of hell shall counterbalance, by the 
dissemination of error and the multiplication of their 
disciples, the accessions to Christianity by the prose- 
lytism of the celestial agents; and hence the Evangelist 
writes of the beast that “his death’s wound was 
healed.” 

The influence of infidelity will be so supreme that 
it will penetrate every rank of society and monopolize 
every avenue of trade and industry. And no man can 
“buy or sell but he that hath the character, or the 
name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here 
is wisdom. He that hath understanding let him count 
the number of the beast. For it is the number of a 
man ; and his number is six hundred sixty-six.” (Apoc. 
13-17.) St. Irenaeus says that as Noe was six hundred 
years old when he entered the Ark to escape the Flood 
which came to punish apostasy, and as the -statue of 
Nabuchodonosor, for not adoring which Ananias, 
Azarias and Misael were cast into the flaming furnace, 
was sixty cubits high and six cubits wide, so Anti- 
Christ, who shall sum up all the apostasies and all the 
iniquities of past centuries, and whose reign shall 
announce the impending destruction of the world in 
flood and flame, is fitly represented by the number 
six hundred and sixty-six. 

Taking the letters in the name which Anti-Christ 
will bear, according to the Greek notation, you get the 
number six hundred and sixty-six. Alpha, the first 
letter in the Greek alphabet, stands for one; Beta, the 
second, stands for two; Gamma, the third, stands for 
three; Delta, the fourth, stands for four; Epsilon, the 
fifth, stands for five; and so on with the other letters, 
each representing some number. Irenaeus says that 
among many other names Latini and Teitan, accord¬ 
ing to the Greek alphabet (and the Apocalypse was 


This Two Kingdoms. 283 

written in Greek), have this number. Let us analyze 
the word Teitan: 

Tau, the first letter in this name, stands for. 300 

The second letter, Epsilon, stands for. 5 

The third, Iota, stands for. 10 

The fourth, Tau, stands for. 300 

The fifth, Alpha, stands for. 1 

The sixth, Nu, stands for. 50 


Adding this column we have six hundred and 
sixty-six. The Bishop of Lyons writes that the name 
Teitan, which is the Greek spelling of Titan, “is most 
worthy of credit of all names which we have. For it 
both contains in itself the aforesaid number, and is of 
six letters, each syllable consisting of three letters, and 
it is old and withdrawn (from use); for neither of our 
own kings hath any been called Titan, nor any of the 
idols which are publicly adored among Greeks or Bar¬ 
barians hath this name; and this name is thought 
among many to be divine, so that even the sun is called 
Titan by those who now prevail; and it hath in it a 
certain show of revenge, and of inflicting a penalty; 
in that he of whom we speak feigns himself the avenger 
of wrongs. And for the rest it is also ancient, and 
trustworthy and a royal, or rather, even, a tyrannical 
name. Since, therefore, this name of Titan has such 
a store of plausibilities, it hath however just so much 
likelihood, and that we may many ways infer that he 
who shall come may possibly be called Titan.” 
(Irenaeus’ Works, Ox. Ed., p. 521.) 

When Henoch and Elias “shall have finished their 
testimony, the beast, that ascendeth up out of the 
abyss, shall make war against them, and shall over¬ 
come them, and kill them. And their bodies shall lie 
in the streets of the great city which is called spiritually 
Sodom and Egypt, where the Lord also was crucified. 








284 


The; Two Kingdoms. 


And they of the tribes and peoples and tongues and 
nations, shall see their bodies for three days and a half; 
and they shall not suffer their bodies to be laid in 
sepulchers. And they that dwell upon the earth, shall 
rejoice over them, and make merry; and shall send 
gifts one to another, because these two prophets tor¬ 
mented them that dwelt upon the earth. And after 
three days and a half, the spirit of life from God entered 
into them. And they stood upon their feet, and great 
fear fell upon them that saw them. And they heard 
a great voice from heaven saying to them: Come up 
hither. And they went up to heaven in a cloud; and 
their enemies saw them.” (Apoc. 9-7, etc.) 

That the tidings of the death of the two prophets 
shall reach every part of the globe, and that all the 
nations shall come to view the' remains, within the 
brief space of three days and a half, augurs for that 
age facilities of communication and transportation 
vastly excelling all the contrivances and inventions of 
locomotion known at the present time. Three days 
and a half constitutes eighty-four hours, in which time 
they will be able to encompass the globe, for the dis¬ 
tance intervening between the antipodes is over twelve 
thousand miles, and as the messages conveying the 
information must travel to the remotest parts of the 
earth, and those receiving the news must return and 
see the corpses during the period that they are exposed 
to public gaze, the entire space would be equal to the 
length of the equator. 

However, we can presume that telegraphic com¬ 
munications would almost instantaneously announce 
the victory of the beast over the apostles from the court 
of heaven, and, therefore, the three and a half days 
could be employed in traversing the semi-circum¬ 
ference of the globe. Yet this movement would rival 


The Two Kingdoms. 


28s 


the rapidity of the lightning’s flame, and the conclusion 
is forced on my mind that among the marvels of that 
wondrous age, the flying ship will become a reality. 

Not only do I believe that a colossal machine, pro¬ 
pelled bv electricity, or some other force of an occult 
nature, possessed of subtle potency, will navigate the 
air, like the steel-clad steamers plough the waves, 
carrying thousands of human lives beyond the realms 
of floating clouds and fleecy vapors, into regions of 
rarest atmosphere: but I, also, maintain that science 
will shape aeronautic contrivances for individual pur¬ 
poses. In those days merchants can conduct business 
in New York or Chicago, and yet find no incon¬ 
venience in spending their evenings at their homes on 
Lake Erie or the peaks of the Rocky Mountains. 

“And when the thousand years shall be finished, 
Satan shall be loosed out of his prison and shall go 
forth and seduce the nations of the earth, Gog and 
Magog, and shall gather them together to battle, the 
number of whom is as the sand of the sea.” (Apoc. 
20-7.) Some writers have held that Gog is the sire 
of the Goths, and Magog the progenitor of the Per¬ 
sians, Tartars and Scythians. Others have concluded 
that these two names designate the nations of the 
earth. The former comprehends the hidden enemies 
of Christianity that lurk within the pale of civilization, 
and oppose the triumphs of revelation by the weapons 
of sophistry; and the latter implies the wild, untamed 
savages who openly antagonize the empire of the 
Gospel. 

St. Augustine says that we should not confound 
these names with the Gelae and the Messegatae, a tribe 
of people of Thracian extraction who inhabited the 
wild forests of Bulgaria. But I contend there is reason 
to believe the Evangelist employed the names of these 


286 


Ths Two Kingdoms. 


savages to designate the cruelty and brutality of those 
who will persecute the Church in the days of Anti- 
Christ. 

The Getae were a warlike people, and they 
defeated every attempt of Alexander and Pyrrhus, to 
conquer their land. They afterwards migrated to the 
north bank of the Danube, having the Dneiper on their 
east. They made frequent forays into the Roman 
Empire. The Romans called them Dacians, and their 
country received the name of Dacia, and they are rep¬ 
resented by the authors of the Augustan era as a wild, 
ferocious and indomitable people. During the reign 
of Domitian, they conquered the cohorts of Rome in 
battle and they exacted a tribute as the price of peace. 
That they were the people mentioned in the Apoca¬ 
lypse is positively confirmed by Gibbon, in his history 
of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Speak¬ 
ing of the pass in Mount Caucasus, known to-day as 
• the Tatar-topa, Gibbon says that “the Albanian and 
Iberian gates excluded the horsemen of Scythia from 
the shortest and most practicable roads, and the whole 
front of the mountain was covered by the rampart of 
Gog and Magog.” (Vol. 4, p. 103.) Certainly there 
must have been a tribe that built this defensive wall 
and consecrated it with their name; and, as the region 
is not far from Wallachia, the last home of the Getae, 
it is probable that they are identical with the people 
mentioned by the historian. 

The Prophet Ezechiel speaks of these names in 
reference to the persecutions of the Church. “Son of 
man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, 
the chief prince of Mosoch and Thubal; and prophesy 
of him. And say to him; Thus saith the Lord God: 
Behold I come against thee, O Gog, the chief prince 
of Mosoch and Thubal. And I will turn thee about, 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


287 


and put a bit in thy jaws; and I will bring thee forth 
and all thy army, horses and horsemen, all clothed 
with coats of mail, a great multitude armed with spears 
and shields and swords. The Persians, Ethiopians 
and Libyans with them. Gomer, and all his bands, the 
house of Thogorma. . . . And I will break thy bow 
in thy left hand, and I will cause thy arrows to fall 
out of thy right hand. Thou shalt fall on the moun¬ 
tains of Israel, thou and all thy bands, and thy nations 
that are with thee.” (Ezechiel 38, 39.) 

Mosoch signifies folly, and Thubal means all 
things; and they are employed to convey the idea that 
the prince thereol is the personification of all earthly 
vanity. The prophet classifies Gog and Magog with 
the Persians, Ethiopians, Libyans and Gomerites, and 
his testimony is confirmed by the authority of Jose¬ 
phus, who says that Gomer and Magog were sons of 
Japhet. “Gomer formed those whom the Greeks called 
Galatians, but were then called Gomerites. Magog 
formed those that from him were named Magogites, 
but who are, by the Greeks, called Scythians.” (An¬ 
tiquities of the Jews, part 1st, p. 20.) 

In this place the Hebrew historian gives an 
account of the nations that sprung from the sons of 
Japhet, and he says that the descendants of -that house 
inhabited all the land from Taurus and Amanus to 
the river Tanais in Asia, and along Europe as far as 
Cadiz. 

In the book of Genesis Moses mentions the names 
of Japhet’s sons: “Gomer and Magog and Madai and 
Javan and Thubal and Mosoch and Thiras.” 

St. Augustine says that Gog signifies that which 
is covered or hidden, and Magog that which comes 
forth from the place covered, or place of retreat. The 
former may be compared to a house, and the latter to 


288 


The Two Kingdoms. 


the inmate of the dwelling. There are nations in which 
we may conceive the devil inclosed as in an abyss, and 
he, going forth from there, may be considered as de 
tcato (from the place of concealment) and they as 
tectum (hidden). (De Civit. Dei, 20, ell.) To give a 
literal translation to the Latin phraseology of Augus¬ 
tine: Satan is supposed to be Gog, because he is 
hidden, and his malice clandestinely infests the masses, 
and the gentile nations of the earth is Magog, because 
they make/ a public proclamation of their hatred of 
Christianity by their overt acts of hostility. 

The six seals are opened, and the history of the 
world, from the foundation of the Church till the day 
of Judgment, is revealed. The white horse is the 
symbol of Christ conquering the world with the 
weapon of the Gospel. The red horse is the type of 
war, which shall desolate the globe. The black horse 
prefigures the reign of famine, and the pale horse is 
the image of death, which shall follow the wake of 
pestilence The breaking of the fifth seal discloses the 
altar of Christ adorned with the souls of the martyrs. 
The judgment of God in the destruction of the earth 
is portrayed in the opening of the sixth seal. The 
last seal being removed, the glory of the saints in 
heaven is manifested, and the kingdom of the just tri¬ 
umphing over the empire of iniquity. 

The voice of the seven trumpets proclaims the pun¬ 
ishments inflicted upon the guilty during the ages of 
time, but especially in the closing years of human 
existence upon the earth, when all the wrath of heaven 
shall be gathered into one bolt of vengeance, and cast 
upon the disciples of the beast, who have persecuted 
the Spouse of Christ. 

The four angels who were bound in the river 
Euphrates are loosed and are prepared for “an hour 


The Two Kingdoms. 


289 

and a day and a month and a year to kill the third part 
of men.” The valley of Euphrates is rich in every pro¬ 
duction, and, hence, this river is the symbol of peace 
and plenty, and it prefigures the tranquillity which sits 
enthroned upon the altar of luxury. But pride, ambi¬ 
tion, avarice and lust are the products of wealth; and 
the four angels are these four passions begotten by the 
possession of earthly treasures. 

It was wealth that made ancient Rome the cess¬ 
pool of every vice. The proud city, whose regal halls 
were enriched with the trophies of every land, fell a 
victim to the passions which national glory and empire 
had engendered. She, who had conquered the world 
with the sword, and imposed tribute upon the tribes of 
the earth, was invaded, sacked and spoliated by the 
nomadic hordes from the frozen shores of the Baltic. 
In the days of Anti-Christ the passions of the heart, 
emerging from the four quarters of the globe, shall 
devastate the earth like the breath of the four tempests 
that sweep the clouds. 

When Christ was in the hands of his enemies, he 
said this is your hour and the power of darkness. A 
few hours passed away. He was taken to the hill of 
execution amidst the taunts and jeers of the rabble, 
who had no faith in his pretensions. The nails were 
driven into his hands and feet, and, expiring upon the 
cross, he said, “Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my 
spirit.” The triumph of the Jews was at an end, for all 
nations proclaimed the divinity of Christ; and coming 
forth from the shadows of death on the third day, he 
confirmed his mission, established his Church; and 
while the remnant of Israel has been conquered by the 
Roman eagles, their temple and city have been 
destroyed and the children of Abraham have been 


290 The Two Kingdoms. 

expatriated and dispersed, the empire of the Savior 
has been extended into every region of the earth. 

When the prophets from the throne of God shall 
have been slain in the streets of Jerusalem, the adher¬ 
ents of the beast will rejoice, thinking that their tri¬ 
umph is complete. Henoch and Elias must die like 
other men because they are mortal; but the spirit shall 
enter into the bleeding bodies of the martyrs, and they 
shall ascend above the clouds unto their Redeemer, 
and then the tide of victory shall turn, and Omnipo¬ 
tence will champion the cause of truth in the destruc¬ 
tion of Satan and his army.” 

“And at that hour there was made a great earth¬ 
quake,” like unto the seismic convulsion that 
announced the death of the Savior on the hill of Cal¬ 
vary. “And the tenth part of the city fell, and there 
were slain in the earthquake names of men seven thou¬ 
sand.” (Apoc. n-13.) Men of note and distinction 
who have advanced the interest of the beast shall fall 
by a stroke from heaven, and this shall be the begin¬ 
ning of woes. 

Then the angels shall pour out the vials of wrath 
upon the heads of the guilty. The first shall afflict 
men with sores and ulcers, like those that tormented 
the Egyptians when Moses came armed with Omnipo¬ 
tence to deliver the Chosen People from earthly bond¬ 
age. And the second angel shall transform the billowy 
blue into crimson waves; and the third shall pollute the 
fountains and the streams, and the rivers of the earth 
shall be changed into blood as in the days of Pharaoh. 
The fourth angel shall afflict men with heat; the fifth 
shall pour out his vial upon the seat of the beast, and 
the sixth shall curse the river Euphrates, the symbol 
of abundance; and death and famine shall fall upon the 
kingdom of Satan. 


The Two Kingdoms. 


291 


“And he shall gather them together into a place 
which in Hebrew is called Armagedon. ,, (Apoc. 
16-16.) This name signifies the hill of robbers, and is 
Golgotha, the mountain of execution, where the two 
thieves were crucified with Christ, who was robbed of 
his glory by a human tribunal, and condemned to 
perish as a malefactor. 

“And the seventh angel poured out his vial upon 
the air, and there came a great voice out of the temple 
from the throne, saying, It is done.” These words were 
used by Our Lord when expiring on the cross, and 
they signified that the age of prophecy was at an end, 
that the mercy of God w r as consummated, that the his¬ 
tory of Israel was finished, that the last revelation was 
made, that the Redemption of the world was complete. 
So the angel pronouncing the words, “It is done,” shall 
proclaim the destruction of the great city, and the ter¬ 
mination of Anti-Christ’s supremacy, the exaltation of 
the Church, the glorification of the saints, the triumph 
of justice and the impending doom. 

“And there were lightnings and voices and thun¬ 
ders, and a great earthquake, such an one as never had 
been seen since men were upon the earth, and the great 
city w r as divided into three parts; and the city of the 
Gentiles fell. And the great Babylon came in remem¬ 
brance before God, to give up the cup of the wine of 
the indignation of his wrath. And every island fled 
and the mountains were not found. And great hail 
like a talent came down from heaven upon men; and 
men blasphemed God for the plague of the hail.” 
(Ibid.) 

From the day that the apostles of truth shall 
ascend unto the end of the Anti-Christian reign shall be 
a period of forty-five days, during which period God 
will turn the forces of nature, the weapons which have 


292 


The Two Kingdoms. 


been employed by Satanic spirits for the advancement 
of their cause, into arrows of destruction, into bolts 
of death, which he will hurl against the enemies of 
truth and justice. 

In reading the story of Israel’s flight from the 
bondage of Pharaoh, we see that Jehovah utilized nat¬ 
ural agencies in scourging Egypt with plagues. Mil- 
man says that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed 
by a flash of lightning striking the cities, and the con¬ 
sequent ignition of the bitumen and sulphur veins per¬ 
meating the underlying soil. “These inflammable sub¬ 
stances, set on fire by lightning, caused a tremendous 
convulsion; the cities, the walls of which were perhaps 
built from the same combustible materials of the soil, 
were entirely swallowed up by the fiery inundation, and 
the whole valley became a dead and fetid lake.” (Hist. 
Jews, p. 8.) The author quotes the opinion of Malte 
Brun, who says that “The valley of the Jordan offers 
many traces of volcanoes ; the bituminous and sulphur¬ 
ous water of Lake Asphaltites, the lava and pumice 
thrown out of its banks, and the warm baths of Taba- 
rich, show that this valley has been the theater of a 
fire not vet extinguished.” (Ibid.) 

When the wrath of heaven shall be poured out 
upon the earth, the Creator will employ the laws of 
nature as his ministers of vengeance. The globes are 
poised in space by the operation of two conflicting- 
forces. Take a ball and throw it into the air at an angle 
of forty-five degrees, and it will move in a straight line 
a certain distance. When its velocity begins to dimin¬ 
ish, it will descend in a curved line called a parabola. 
The ball, by the force of inertia, would move in that 
straight line forever at the same velocity, if it were 
not influenced by another force, known in physics as 
the force of gravitation. These two .forces applied to 


The: Two Kingdoms. 


293 


revolving bodies are called respectively the centrifugal 
and centripetal forces. The earth tends to move in a 
straight line in virtue of the centrifugal force, and 
inclines to the sun, the center of its orbit, in virtue of 
the centripetal force. These two forces being evenly 
balanced keep all those vast and numerous bodies in 
their relative positions. 

If the earth should be impeded in its movement, 
the centrifugal force would be diminished, and the cen¬ 
tripetal correspondingly enhanced, and the equilibrium 
being destroyed, this planet would depart from its 
orbit, and rush on, with ever-increasing speed, till it 
would collide with the sun. 

In your childhood you have experimented with a 
sling whirling the stone around a circular space till it 
acquired sufficient momentum to carry it a great dis¬ 
tance. Impede the velocity of the stone above your 
head and it will fall. When one end of the string is 
detached from the hand, the stone flies off in a tangent. 
The former represents the centripetal and the latter 
the centrifugal force. A bucket of water whirled 
around in the same way will retain the fluid when 
directly above the head, with the opening toward the 
ground; for, in that case, the centrifugal force out¬ 
weighs the centripetal force. Poise the bucket above 
your head for an instant, and you thereby destroy the 
centrifugal force, and the centripetal not being coun¬ 
terbalanced, the water rushes out. 

Science teaches us that the globes are constantly 
casting off ponderous masses, by the operation of cen¬ 
trifugal force, which float around until they collide 
with some other bodies. It is the opinion of the ablest 
astronomers that the planets were formed by the force 
of gravity mutually attracting the atoms that filled 
the universe, into large masses; and these again whirl- 


The Two Kingdoms. 


2 94 

ing through space hurled forth other bodies, that took 
their places in the planetary systems. It is possible 
that the constant action of these forces may eventuate 
in the destruction of that equilibrium essential to the 
maintenance of harmony among the spheres. This 
may occur, by Providential preconcertion, simulta¬ 
neously with the end of the world and the last Judg¬ 
ment. However, I do not pretend to sustain this 
hypothesis with any arguments, but merely submit it 
to the opinion of my readers; and, for the present, I 
will attribute the destruction of the earth to the imme¬ 
diate intervention of divine power. 

When the hour of annihilation arrives, God will 
put forth his hand and stop the spheres, and the '‘eter¬ 
nal dances of the skies” will end in the clash of the 
orbs, planet striking planet and system rolling into 
system, till the universe shall be extinguished in burn¬ 
ing flames. Isaias, foreseeing the end of tlie world, 
exclaims: “A visitation shall come from the Lord of 
hosts in thunder and with earthquake and with a great 
noise of whirlwind and tempest, and with a flame of 
devouring fire.” (Isa. 29-6.) 

Heat rarefies the atmosphere and causes it to 
ascend, while the air from the cooler regions rushes in 
to fill the vacancy, thus causing winds, tempests, tor¬ 
nadoes, hurricanes. Storms are usually more frequent 
and violent in summer than in winter; for when the 
rays of the sun strike the earth vertically, great heat 
is engendered at that point, thus creating atmospheric 
disturbances, which result in whirlwinds and cyclones. 
Radiant heat diminishes in intensity as the square of 
the distance from the radiating body increases, and 
vice versa, it increases as the ratio between the squares 
of the distances increases. According to this law, 
should the earth approach within forty-six millions of 


The Two Kingdoms. 


295 


miles from the sun, it would receive four times the 
amount of heat from that orb than it does at present; 
for the ratio between the squares of ninety-two and 
forty-six millions is four. We are therefore justified 
in concluding that the terrific storms that shall accom¬ 
pany the annihilation of this planet, shall be produced 
by the approximation of the heavenly bodies. 

Not only does the prophet state that the last day 
will be accompanied by tempests and whirlwinds, the 
effects of the unequal ponderosity of the atmosphere, 
but, also, with flames of fire. “For behold the day 
shall come kindled as a furnace, and all the proud and 
all that do wickedly shall be stubble, and the day that 
cometh shall set them on fire.” (Malach. 4-1.) St. 
Peter confirms this prophecy. “But the day of the 
.. Lord shall come as a thief, in which the heavens shall 
pass away with great violence; and the elements shall 
be dissolved with heat, and the earth and the works 
that are in it, shall be burnt up. Seeing then that all 
things are to be dissolved, by which the heavens, being 
on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt 
with the burning of the fire.” (2 Peter 3-10.) What 
other significance can be attached to the language of 
the Scriptures, but the explanation that the universe 
shall be annihilated by the suspension of the laws that 
direct the movements of the celestial spheres, by 
destroying the equilibrium of the centripetal and cen¬ 
trifugal forces? 

The Prophet Sophonias writes that “That day is a 
day of wrath, a day of tribulation and distress, a day 
of calamity and misery, a day of darkness and obscur¬ 
ity, a day of clouds and whirlwinds.” (Soph. 1-14.) 
Clouds are formed by evaporation, and this is en¬ 
hanced in proportion to caloric intensity. Therefore 
as the earth approximates the sun, the center of its 


296 The Two Kingdoms. 

orbit, the source of heat, the solar rays reflecting upon 
the oceans with ever-increasing force will transform 
the waves into dense, sable clouds, that shall roll up 
in such volumes that the light of heaven shall be inter¬ 
cepted, and the shadows of night shall encircle the 
globe. 

This fact is expressed by the voice of Joel, who 
says that “The heavens are moved; the sun and moon 
are darkened; and the stars have withdrawn their shin- 
ing.” (Joel 2-3.) 

Our Divine Lord speaks of the signs in the 
heavens, and he informs us that distress shall not only 
seize the nations of the earth, but a wail of sorrow shall 
come from the deep, and the restless waves shall howl 
in despair, and weep over the desolation of nature. 
“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon 
and in the stars, and upon the earth distress of nations, 
by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea 
and of the waves, men withering away for fear and 
expectation of what shall-come upon the whole world, 
for the powers of heaven shall be moved.” (Luke 21.) 

The fury of the deep is engendered by tempests 
and tides, and the potency of both these agencies shall 
be multiplied by the causes which T have advanced. 
Tides are chiefly produced by the' attraction of the 
moon, and, to some degree, by the attraction of the 
sun. The force of gravity, like the force of radiant 
heat, decreases as the square of the distance increases. 
If the earth were only one-half the distance from the 
moon, the attraction would be four times greater. The 
spring-tides in the Bay of Fundy reach a height of 
seventy feet. When this planet approaches its satel¬ 
lite, the tides will become terrific, rising several hun¬ 
dred or a thousand feet high, and the roaring of the 
sea, produced by this mighty movement of the waves, 


The Two Kingdoms. 


2 97 

will send terror into the hearts of men, and they shall 
wither away in fear. "And immediately after the tribu¬ 
lation of these days, the sun shall be darkened and the 
moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall 
from heaven.” (Matth. 24.) 

The Evangelist says that fire came down from 
out of heaven and devoured the enemies of Christian¬ 
ity, ‘‘and the devil who seduced them, was cast into a 
pool of fire and brimstone, where both the beast and 
the false prophet shall be tormented day and night for¬ 
ever and ever. And I saw the dead, great and small, 
standing in the presence of the throne, and the books 
were opened, and the dead were judged by those things 
which were written in the book according to their 
works.” (Apoc. 20.) 

After the triumph of Christ over the agents of hell, 
the destruction of the world, which shall be done to 
purify the domains of creation from the pollution of 
human iniquities, and in attestation of divine hatred 
of sin and its authors, the angel of doom shall sound 
the reveille, and all the generations that have peopled 
the globe shall arise from the slumber of ages, clad in 
the robes of living flesh, the flesh of their mortal exist¬ 
ence, and appear in the valley of judgment. 

"And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and 
death and hell gave up their dead that were in them, 
and hell and death were cast into the pool of fire. This 
is the second death.” (Ibid.) Death here signifies 
those who passed out of this life in a state of mortal 
sin, and hell is used to designate the army of fallen 
angels, the demons whose malice is eternal. By 
metonymy, death and hell denote the lost souls and 
the doomed spirits. This interpretation is given by 
St. Augustine, who says that the first resurrection is 
the spiritual birth, by which we become members of 


298 


The Two Kingdoms. 


the mystical body of Christ by the infusion of sanctify¬ 
ing grace; and the second resurrection shall take place 
on the day of judgment, when the soul shall be wedded 
to its earthly companion by the magic kiss of immor¬ 
tality. The first death is the loss of spiritual life by the 
commission of grievous sin; and the second death is 
the eternal damnation of soul and body at the end of 
the world. (De Civitate Dei, book 20th, chap. 6-7.) 

The great doctor of the African Church supports 
this interpretation by several passages from the New 
Testament. When Jesus said, “Let the dead bury their 
dead/' he commanded his disciples to separate them¬ 
selves from sinners, and let those who are dead in sin 
bury those who are dead in body. St. Paul says that 
“Christ died for all; that they also who now live may 
not live to themselves, but unto him who died for 
them.” (2 Cor. 5-15.) These words show that before 
the redemption of Christ the world was dead in sin, 
and the acceptation of life from him was the first resur¬ 
rection. Our Savior said: “Amen, amen, I say to you 
that he who heareth my word and believeth him that 
sent me, hath everlasting life.” (John 5-4.) That 
Christ here speaks of a spiritual resurrection through 
grace is evident, when he attributes life to the work¬ 
ing of faith. This is still further confirmed by the 
words of the following verse: “Amen, amen, I say 
to you, that the hour cometh, and now is, when the 
dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they 
that hear shall live.” Since he spoke of the time in 
which he was corporally on earth, he must have 
referred to spiritual regeneration and resurrection from 
the grave of sin by the grace attached to his holy doc¬ 
trines. 

St. Augustine proves, by a quotation from St. 
Paul, that those who are buried with Christ, are also 


The Two Kingdoms. 


2 99 

called dead, that is, dead to all allurements of the flesh, 
to all the fascinations of the world. The Apostle writes 
to the Colossians: “For you are dead; and your life 
is hid with Christ in God.” (3-3.) 

The Bishop of Hippo says that the sea, on account 
of its fluctuability, is a symbol of this world, and from 
the Scriptural application of the word dead, to the just 
as well as to the unjust, concludes that the phrase in 
Revelation, “the sea gave up the dead that were in it,” 
signifies all those yet living upon earth at the end of 
the world, whether they be the children of light or the 
children of darkness. (De Civit. Dei, book 20, 
chap. 15.) 

“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for 
the first heaven and the first earth was gone, and the 
sea is now no more.” (Apoc. 21-1.) St. Augustine 
says. that those qualities of heaven and earth, which 
are adapted to mortal bodies, being destroyed by fire, 
the substance shall remain, and the world will be thus 
renovated and made agreeable to glorified humanity. 
(Ibid, chap. 16.) Leaving aside the opinions of the 
Fathers and other writers who have made a special 
study of this question, I wish to offer my personal the¬ 
ory in reference to the eternal condition of material, 
animal and human existence. 

It is now the general opinion among scientists 
that the earth was originally a globe of fire cast off by 
centrifugal force from some larger body. In the gen¬ 
eral destruction of nature, in the collision of the 
heavenly bodies, all the floating spheres shall be gath¬ 
ered, according to their systems, into one mass of 
matter. As the forces which direct the movements of 
the world shall not change, we may presume that 
new creations will take place in the slow process of 
ages. The sun revolving on its axis, will hurl forth 


300 


The Two Kingdoms. 


balls of fire which will become new planets and globes 
in the vast solar system. And thus the lonely spaces, 
left desolate by flaming billows, will be re-peopled, 
and millions of brilliant orbs will roll out into the 
firmament with the passage of centuries. 

If the theory of evolution is a scientific fact, I see 
no reason why this process should not be continued 
forever, begetting new creations which shall develop 
into new orders of rational beings, bearing a similitude 
to the human race. Presuming that this hypothesis is 
in consonance with the dictum of modern science, and 
not antagonistic to Biblical teachings, we can advance 
still further in our speculations. 

If matter is endowed with the germs of life and 
the power of generation, will not each period of mun¬ 
dane existence be characterized by the formation of 
higher types of creation? By a period I refer, in this 
place, to that indefinite age intervening between mate¬ 
rial existence in chaotic confusion to its ultimate devel¬ 
opment in the formation of perfect order and in the 
realization of all its possibilities, and its return to the 
original condition. I maintain that new worlds will 
be formed from the wreck of the universe; that other 
suns shall beam in the heavens; other earths shall 
rejoice in the wealth of their hills and the beauty of 
their vales; other races of intelligent creatures will 
people the globes, each nobler and grander than the 
preceding, till every atom that floats in space will be 
endowed with spiritual life. 

What other motive could God have had in crea¬ 
tion except the manifestation of his glory and the diffu¬ 
sion of his love? Inert matter can not proclaim the 
glory of the Creator, for being devoid of reason, its 
homage is senseless and without value. Affection 
can be lavished on those creatures onlv which can 


The Two Kingdoms. 


301 


appreciate and return the affection; and as rational 
faculties are required in the discharge of these func¬ 
tions, nothing less perfect than intelligent existence 
can be the object of divine love. Therefore the lan¬ 
guage of the wise man, that “God loveth all things 
that are” (Wis. 11-25), contains a prophecy relating to 
the embryotic potentiality of matter, and the exaltation 
of material creation to the empire of reason. 

The voice of inspiration arises from the lips of the 
young men of Israel walking in the midst of raging 
flames, invoking the heavens, with the sun and moon 
and stars, and every shower and every dew, and heat 
and cold, and ice and snow, light and darkness, day 
and night, seas and rivers, hills and mountains, and 
the whales of the deep and the fowls of the air, and the 
beasts of the earth, and every power and force in the 
universe to “bless the Lord; praise and exalt him 
above all forever.” (Dan. 3.) This song is the proc¬ 
lamation of the rational possibilities contained in mat¬ 
ter ; and the day will come when springs and fountains, 
sky and wave, lights and shadows, clouds and tem¬ 
pests, will pour forth their voices and lift up their hands 
in rational prayer and praise. (Habacuc 3.) 

I, also, maintain that the other planets are inhab¬ 
ited, for the reason advanced in these pages in sub¬ 
stantiation of the opinion of eternal evolution. God 
never filled those unmeasured realms of space with 
dazzling globes and glittering spheres tor the purpose 
of displaying his creative skill. His object in calling 
them into existence was undoubtedly the realization of 
intelligent creation to love and praise and glorify him 
forever. The earth is an insignificant speck in the 
arena of space, and I can not think that Infinite Wis¬ 
dom would adorn this planet with rational beings, and 
deprive the myriads of other worlds of the higher types 


302 


The Two Kingdoms. 


of creation. Perhaps those distant orbs are peopled 
with creatures as far above the human race as the latter 
exceeds the lowest order of irrational life. 

This hypothesis is not inimical to the doctrines of 
Revelation, nor does the Sacred Volume discounte¬ 
nance any of the theories which I have advanced in 
this work. The Bible deals only with the race of 
Adam. As Dr. Zahm has ably proved, it is not antago¬ 
nistic to the tenets of inspiration to suppose the exist¬ 
ence of a pre-Adamitic race, and I see no reason for 
concluding in favor of a new order of creatures en¬ 
dowed with body and soul, who shall inhabit the newly 
made earth. 

Grass seed sown in a field increases with each 
year, until the soil is entirely exhausted. Enhance the 
fecundity of the land, by the application of fertilizing 
substances, and it will generate an abundance of vege¬ 
tation. The first ages of animal life produced gigantic 
species, which are now disappearing, many having 
already become extinct, because the prolific powers 
of the earth are waning, and its possibilities are well 
nigh extinguished. With the dawn of the new crea¬ 
tion, the fecund energies of nature will be multiplied, 
and a new, a higher and grander species of beings will 
emerge from land and sea. 

I believe that space is infinite. If it be limited, 
it must be bound by some material object. But every 
particle of matter must exist in space, and, therefore, 
space would encircle space till we are lost in zones 
illimitable. 

We are taught by the voice of inspiration that 
eternal beatitude consists in knowing and loving God. 
But God is infinite truth and infinite goodness, and in 
knowing and loving God, we are exercising the noblest 
powers of the soul. The soul is ever seeking truth 


The Two Kingdoms. 


303 


and ever searching for goodness; and in its glorified 
state, knowledge and love will engross all its energies, 
direct all its actions. The Infinite Mind contains the 
archetypes of creation, for the idea of every created 
being is in the mind of its creator. The design of a 
palace is contained in the intellect of the architect. The 
noblest work of human skilll is the materialization of 
the original concept of the mind that planned the build¬ 
ing. The temple of nature, the vast dome of the 
heavens, studded with solar orbs and tinted with stellar 
rays, are the externalizations of ideas that forever 
existed in the mind of God. 

Therefore, in knowing God, we are familiarizing 
our minds with the works of creation, with the laws 
of the universe, with the mysteries of nature. But the 
study of concepts is merely theoretical knowledge, and 
the human soul is not satisfied with this. We read 
descriptions of foreign countries, and view photo¬ 
graphs of gorgeous palaces and colossal temples; but 
still we long to visit those places, and pass through 
those famous buildings; and it very frequently occurs 
that the reality far surpasses our anticipations. There 
is such a difference between practical and theoretical 
knowledge. 

In heaven the blessed spirits will not only gaze 
on the Infinite Mind, but will roam eternally through 
those vast fields of light, and become conversant with 
the glory of creation in its external form. Whatever 
the soul can not comprehend in the mysteries of the 
globes will be explained by consulting the mind of the 
Creator. If we go into a flower garden for the purpose 
of studying the science of botany, we will take our 
text-book with us; and whenever we meet with a plant 
of whose properties we are ignorant, immediately we 
refer to our text-book. Likewise, in reading the mys- 


304 


The Two Kingdoms. 


teries of the stars, we shall refer to the Lord of 
Creation. 

God is the book of nature and those radiant 
worlds the school of the universe. As the divine intel¬ 
lect is infinite, and is filled with an infinite variety of 
concepts, and as millions of these have been realized 
in the creation of suns innumerable with their systems 
in the illimitable domains of space, the angelic spirits 
and the souls of the just will have a field of operation 
for mental exercise which shall not be exhausted in the 
endless ages of eternity. 






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